


Child of the Wolf

by Mhalachai



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Gen, Mystery, Secret Identity, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-16
Updated: 2012-12-12
Packaged: 2017-11-18 19:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/564316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mhalachai/pseuds/Mhalachai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Caught between hunters and werewolves and wendigos, Stiles almost doesn’t have time to wonder much about the hot new redheaded Deputy Sherriff or the bow-wielding sarcastic gym teacher. Almost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

So it was the day before school started and Stiles was minding his own business at home in the kitchen, his computer open with a fucktillion webpages on werewolves and magic (and okay maybe a porn site in the background, shut up it was soft-core). The house was quiet and Stiles was able to flick between three things at once without having to listen for Dad or the pitter-patter of werewolf footsteps.

Just as Stiles decided he needed another sandwich, he heard his father's car pull into the driveway. He had just enough time to pull the newspaper over his sketchbook on the drawing of the latest weird creature in Beacon Hills, lock his laptop screen, and fling himself casually into a chair when his father appeared in the doorway.

Father and son stared at each other for a moment. "Aren't you in the middle of a shift?" Stiles asked, unable to keep his mouth shut for longer than absolutely necessary. "Everything okay?"

His father rubbed his hand over his face. "You're grounded," was all he said.

"Dad!" Stiles jumped to his feet, upending his chair and nearly toppling to the floor. "What the actual hell!" 

He frantically tried to remember what he'd been doing in recent days that might have set his father's law-and-order instincts off. Sure, there might have been a spot of _perfectly justifiable grave robbing_ the previous week, but Stiles and Derek had been trying to save Isaac from a succubus and that totally took precedent. 

"You're grounded forever," Dad said, chopping at the air with his hand. "In fact, we should talk military school."

Stiles flapped his jaw, but no words came out. He gestured wildly in what he hoped conveyed, _are you insane?_

His father walked over to the fridge and pulled out the orange juice. Such an innocuous action jump-started Stiles' mouth. "What? When? More specifically, _what_?"

Dad knocked back a mouthful of juice and put the empty container in the sink. "This town is dangerous, Stiles."

"Yeah, Dad, I got that memo two years ago," Stiles snapped. "So what?"

"More dangerous than you know," Dad shot back, leaning against the counter. 

Stiles highly doubted that, because if there was _more_ shit out there than what he'd already been dealing with, he was just fucking done. Instead, he tried to drag his mind back into normal law enforcement mode. "So, what, new sex offender in town?" he asked. "Serial killer? Is it an election year?"

The glare Stiles got was pure Stilinski bitchface, but at least his dad wasn't freaking out anymore. "You need to listen to me. You're grounded until school starts."

"Great," Stiles said, throwing his hands wide. "Fine. Sure. Are we done? I need to meet Scott in an hour."

Dad huffed, frustrated. "You're not listening to me, this place is-"

"Dad! It's Beacon Hills, it's the same as it's always been!" And the sad, sad thing was, Stiles wasn't even lying. Beacon Hills had always been full of werewolves and witches and hunters and other crazy shit, even if the people in town refused to see the truth. "I'm fine!"

Which also wasn't a lie. He may have spent two years being fate's bitch, his best friend being a werewolf and the whole town a festering cesspool of _weird_ , but that was just Stiles' new normal. He was fine. No big fucking deal.

Dad's attention focused on Stiles like a laser-sight, and he was moving across the kitchen, grabbing Stiles' shoulders and pulling him into a too-tight hug, like Stiles was a little boy with a snuffly nose and scraped knees, not the man Stiles was.

A short, scrawny, nearly-always terrified man with perfectly justifiable anxiety attacks and more than a hint of PTSD, but still.

"I need to know you're safe," Dad said against Stiles' hair. "You get that, right?"

And Stiles did, because he spent every day feeling the same way about his father. "Yeah, Dad."

Dad let Stiles go, ruffling his hair as he did so. Stiles made a face, ducking away.

"I have to go back to work," Dad said, picking his hat up off the table. As he did so, he upended the concealing pages on top of the drawing of Beacon Hills' latest supernatural visitor. Stiles steeled himself for a question, ready with a quip about his artistic ability, but Dad just gave the drawing a long look, and put his hat back on his head. He cleared his throat. "You be careful," he cautioned.

"Like a bull in a china shop," Stiles promised. His father appeared unconvinced, but he walked out the door, leaving Stiles once again alone.

Stiles waited until he heard his father's car drive away, before slumping into his chair and letting his head thump against the wooden table. 

What in the name of fuzzy werewolf dreams was _that?_

* * *

"I hate you."

Scott looked up from the side of the road, looking wounded. "I didn't do this!" he protested.

Stile poked once more at the jumble of wires under the jeep's hood. "I'm not talking to you, fur-head," he snapped. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"

"For the last time, call a tow truck," Scott said. "I don't know anything about car engines and neither do you."

Stiles pushed away from the car, looking up and down the deserted forest road. He and Scott had been on one last before-school walk in the forest to try to locate the wendigo rumored to be hiding in the hills, and his jeep had sputtered to a halt just as they crested the final hill in the Beacon Hills forest preserve.

Honestly, it had seemed like a good idea at the time. 

If Stiles survived this day, he was going to have that inscribed on his tombstone. 

"You know if I call a tow truck, my dad's going to kill me," Stiles said. "Either that or ship me off to military school, and you know that obeying orders gives me hives."

"How would I know that, you've never done anything you've been told in your whole life," Scott pointed out. He was staring down the road to the east. "There's a car coming."

Stiles would have to believe werewolf ears for that one. "Maybe they can help," he muttered, flinging himself against the side of his car.

Scott frowned, his hands hanging loose at his side. "It's just..."

Stiles narrowed his gaze at his friend. "What?"

Scott licked his lower lip. "It's that Allison mentioned that there might be some people coming to town."

Stiles blinked, Scott's words hitting him hard. He took a deep breath, trying to suck in some air around the weight of his heart sinking in his chest. "What, like _hunter_ people?" Stiles asked. "And now we're trapped in the middle of a freaking forest and you just think to mention this now?"

"I didn't think she meant so soon!" Scott shot back, just as in the distance a car rounded a hairpin turn and drove into view. 

Stiles' heart nearly gave out in relief. It was one of the official cars from the Sheriff's department, painted the familiar safe white and black. "Oh man, you're still fired."

"What?"

"You got to share this whole 'hunters coming to town' shit with the team, bro," Stiles said as the car slowed down on approach. "And since when are you talking to Allison again?"

"She texted," Scott replied, as the car rolled to a halt on the side of the road. "She's coming back to school tomorrow."

Stiles was going to say something witty and snarky, as was his way, when the door of the police cruiser opened and a stranger stepped out.

Sure, she was wearing a Sheriff's department uniform, hair pulled back severely from her face and so totally hot it was surprising she wasn't on fire, but she was a stranger to Stiles and he had known every single person to serve with the Sheriff's department since he was three. 

He didn't know this woman.

He and Scott were alone on top of the mountain with this stranger in deputy's clothing, and she had a gun. 

He had a werewolf, but those things never evened out in the end.

The woman in the deputy's outfit walked towards the jeep. "Are you having some trouble?" she asked, her voice unexpectedly husky. If Stiles hadn't been having a panic attack, he might have been gaping at her total hotness, even in the deputy outfit. 

"No, we're fine," Scott said quickly, picking up on Stiles' silent freak out. "You know. Out for a walk."

The stranger-deputy raised her eyebrows at the two of them, going around them to shine her flashlight at the engine beneath the upraised jeep hood. "You have any enemies?" she asked after a minute. 

"Nope," Stiles said automatically, backing away and pulling Scott with him. "We're living enemy free these days."

The stranger looked at him oddly. "Really? Because someone's sliced through your antifreeze line," she said, pointing at a spot in the engine. "You must have overheated at the top of the hill."

"Silly me," Stiles said, smacking himself in the head. "I'll get that looked at."

The deputy slipped her flashlight into a loop on her service belt. "Why don't I give you boys a ride into town and we can call a tow truck to come up and retrieve the jeep?"

Stiles stared down at her. She was really _short_ , even in her deputy boots, with auburn hair pulled back off her face and the greenest eyes Stiles had ever seen, even considering a lifetime of staring at Lydia Martin, and quite possibly the cutest nose in existence.

He just hoped she wasn't going to try to kill him, because that would put a real crimp in his fantasy life.

"Come on, hop in," she went on, gesturing towards the cruiser.

"Ah, see, here's the thing," Stiles said, far more hopeful about his chances of survival in an open air fight rather than being trapped in the back of the car. "So, I'm sure you're very nice and everything but I don't know you and I know all the deputies and their families and sometimes even their household help, so no thanks, we're good."

Far from looking annoyed, or even surprised, the woman nearly smiled at him. "Blue jeep, chatty to the point of irritation, you must be the Sheriff's kid."

"I am-wait, what?" Stiles demanded, but the woman was already reaching for her shoulder-radio and calling in. 

"Dispatch, this is Deputy Rushman, I'm up on the edge of the Beacon Hills forest preserve with a stalled jeep and two minors in need of a lift."

A burst of static, and then a familiar voice came over the radio. "Roger, Deputy Rushman," said Margery's voice. Stiles nearly collapsed in relief. He'd known Margery for nearly his whole life, trusted her as much as he could trust anyone in the Sheriff's department. "Are you going to bring them in?"

"I'm trying to," Deputy Rushman said, never taking her eyes off Stiles. "One of the individuals would like to verify my identity."

Stiles heard Margery's sigh over the static. "Stiles, is that you?"

He edged closer to the deputy and said, "Hey, dispatch, what's your 10-20?"

"Button it, Stiles, and let Deputy Rushman do her job," Margery ordered. "If you mess up her first day on the job here in Beacon Hills, I suspect your father might have something to say about that. Now you get in the patrol car and come back into town."

"Yes ma'am," Stiles mumbled automatically.

"Dispatch, I'm suspending my patrol for the time being," Deputy Rushman said. "Will resume at the end of shift."

Margery rogered out, and the deputy looked up at Stiles and the hovering Scott. "So," Stiles said, smiling sheepishly at the woman. "How about that ride back into town?"

The deputy waved her hand at the patrol car. "Get in."

She turned to open her door. Stiles turned to say something to Scott, but his friend was no longer at his side. While they'd been talking, Scott had been edging closer to the deputy, until he was standing right beside her. 

And then, to Stiles' everlasting humiliation, Scott _sniffed_ her.

"Oh god," Stiles muttered in utter mortification. He sprang forward and hauled Scott away to the other side of the car, away from the deputy and the puzzled look she was giving Scott. "You are the most embarrassing person I have ever met!"

"What?" Scott demanded in a stage whisper.

"You can't just go around smelling girls, are you some kind of stupid person?" Stiles hissed. He shoved Scott at the back-seat door. "No shotgun for you."

Stiles slid in the passenger side door and buckled in, certain his face was red with embarrassment. Yeah, he was sure the new deputy smelled nice and all that, but it was like a rule, you didn't just go around smelling girls. It was creepy and stalkery and you didn't just _smell_ people, no matter if they looked like they might smell like cinnamon and cloves and gunpowder.

Scratch that. Maybe Scott wasn't the one acting like a creeper.

Deputy Rushman slid into the car, checking the mirrors and stowing her hat on the seat between her and Stiles. "Everyone buckled in?" she asked.

"Yes ma'am," Stiles said, hearing Scott give a similar response from the back seat. And with that, the deputy started the car and pulled out into the road.

They drove in silence for a few minutes, letting the police radio crackle with muted ambiance. The deputy kept her eyes on her surroundings, taking in the forest and road turns with interest. It wasn't until she shifted her gaze to him, that Stiles realized he'd been staring.

"Do you boys often spend time out walking in the woods?" Deputy Rushman asked. 

"You know," Stiles said, "School starts soon and we won't get a chance to commune much with nature."

"It's nice to get away from town," Scott added, and Stiles realized with horror that Scott was pressed up against the wire screen separating the backseat from the front part of the cabin, his nose inches away from the deputy's hair. "Gives us a chance away from checking everyone's Facebook status."

The deputy raised an eyebrow as she glanced in the rearview mirror. "If you say so."

Stiles turned around to give Scott the stone-cold glare he deserved. It wasn't on the same level with the Derek Hale deathstare, but Stiles was getting close. "So, Deputy Rushman," Stiles said loudly. "What brings you to our little town?"

The deputy shrugged. In profile, her nose was even cuter than Stiles first imagined. "The job posting came up. I wanted to come back to the West Coast."

"Where were you posted before?" Scott asked. He made the question sound reasonable, as if he wasn't still inhaling the woman's scent.

"New York."

Stiles and Scott exchanged a glance. Stiles' mind went back to the idea of new hunters in town, and he wondered from how far away they might come. "Cool," was all Stiles could think of to say.

"So," the deputy said, pulling off the preserve road and into traffic. "You're Stiles Stilinski, does that make you Scott McCall?" she addressed the backseat.

Scott sat back. "Yes," he said slowly, shadows on his face. Two years before, Scott would never had looked like that, never have thought the worst of people. But that was before Scott had been turned into a werewolf, before the Argents came to town, before Gerard and the Kanima and the Alpha pack. 

Back when he and Stiles had still been boys. 

"The Sheriff talks about you," Deputy Rushman said, stepping on the gas. 

"All good, I hope?" Stiles quipped.

A slow smile spread across the woman's face, and Stiles nearly swooned. The woman was breathtakingly gorgeous. He just hoped she wasn't a Hunter, that would suck beyond measure. "Something along the lines of, part of our local Scooby Doo gang."

Scott's eyes went wide, and Stiles nearly choked on his indignation. "Scooby Doo?" he demanded. He turned to Scott. "You're Shaggy."

"You're Shaggy, dork," Scott said, kicking the back of Stiles' seat. "I'm Fred."

"I take it back," Stiles said. "You're Scooby Doo."

Scott kicked the back of the seat again. "You get to be Velma," Scott said. "Lydia is Daphne."

Stiles snorted. "So who does that make Scrappy Doo?"

He met Scott's eyes, and couldn't stop himself from grinning. "Jackson," they both said at once, and Stiles could barely hold down hysterical laughter.

The thought of Jackson Whitmore as Scrappy Doo was so entertaining that Stiles nearly missed the part where Deputy Rushman pulled the patrol car up in front of the Sheriff's station. That brought Stiles back to reality with a bump.

"Oh crap."

He stared at the deputy, feeling somehow betrayed, as she put the car into park and sat looking at him. 

"What did I ever do to you?"

Deputy Rushman jerked her thumb towards the station. "You should head inside. I'm sure the Sheriff will want to speak with you."

"I really thought this was the start of a beautiful friendship," Stiles grumbled. He got out of the car, remembering to let Scott out of the backseat. With a wave, Deputy Rushman pulled the car out of the parking lot, leaving Scott and Stiles standing on the pavement. 

"We could just run," Scott suggested as they stared at the front door of the Sheriff's station. "Pretend none of this ever happened."

"Not possible," Stiles said. "You know Margery, she probably told Dad the second after she talked to us on the hill. Running will only make it worse."

Scott slapped Stiles on the back, nearly putting him on the ground. "Have fun in military school," he said as he headed towards the station.

Just because, Stiles punched Scott in the kidney. "At least I'm not some freak who was slobbering on the new deputy, bitch."

"I was not!" Scott yelped. 

"Dude, if you had been any closer to her, you'd have been violating about sixty sexual assault laws."

"That wasn't it!" Scott exclaimed, for the first time looking a little worried. "Did it look that bad?"

"If I was a girl, I'd have tasered you no question," Stiles said, jerking open the front door. "Hey, Mark."

Deputy Strong glanced up at the boys' entrance. "Hey Stiles," the man said. "The Sheriff is waiting."

"Of course he is," Stiles muttered. With a wave, he and Scott walked down the hall.

It had been months since the massacre, the blood long cleaned up, the bodies long buried. But Stiles still remembered seeing the bodies of the dead deputies, feeling the spine-chilling fear of the Kamina, of Matt's psychotic break.

It was the smell, more than anything, that stayed with Stiles. Not rot, not putrefaction; the bodies had been too freshly killed for that. No, what Stiles remembered was the mix of blood and urine and shit, bodies letting go in violent death.

Breathing was suddenly difficult, and Stiles didn't know how he could have gone on, if Scott hadn't put his hand on Scott's shoulder to give him a push.

Scott had been there too. He knew. He remembered.

Just a few more steps, and Stiles had recovered himself when they made it to the Sheriff's office. Dad was in his chair, hunched over paperwork, and he didn't look up until both Scott and Stiles were in the room.

"Sit."

They sat.

Dad put down his pen and looked up to face the boys. He looked about as old as Stiles felt. "What part of 'you're grounded' don't you understand?" he asked.

Stiles shrugged. "It might have been the 'you're' part," he tried, but the words fell flat. At his side, Scott fidgeted in his chair. 

Dad folded his hands on top of the paperwork. "Deputy Rushman found you up on the preserve, didn't she?" 

"Yes, but-"

"Do you want to remind me how many people have died up in the preserve in the last few years?" 

"Um, like nine, but that's not the point, Scott and me are always safe," Stiles said. For the thousandth time, he just wanted to say, _I've got a werewolf in my back pocket and I'm not afraid to use him_ , but he didn't think Dad would appreciate that. 

Dad just looked at him. And then, for reasons Stiles didn't understand, he shifted his gaze to Scott.

And held it.

Scott, a small frown furrowing his brow, stared back at the Sheriff. The moment stretched, beyond a simple disapproving look, and Stiles realized that Scott's eyes were shifting gold into a full-on werewolf glare.

_Oh shit_ , Stiles thought, freezing in place as he tried to figure out what to do. There wasn't anything in the Beacon Hills survival manual about when your Sheriff father and werewolf best friend got into some manly stare down.

Then Dad blinked, and the gold faded in Scott's eyes. "You boys need to stay safe out there," Dad said, but to Scott, not Stiles. "This place is dangerous."

"I know that," Scott said, the barest hint of a growl in his voice.

"Good." Dad glanced at Stiles. "I'll be working late, getting the new deputy up to speed. You good for dinner?"

"Yeah, I'll nuke a hot pocket," Stiles said, shooting to his feet. "Good talk. C'mon, Scott."

Scott stood slowly, giving Dad a nod and letting himself being ushered out of the office and into the hallway. 

Stiles kept himself from exploding until they were out of the station and clear down the sidewalk. "Dude, did you just wolf-out in front of my dad?" he demanded.

Scott ran his hands through his hair. "Shut up, man, I don't know! He was just all up in my face!"

"That? Was not up in your grill. That wasn't even anything," Stiles insisted. "And yet here you are, all vamping out in my dad's office and slobbering over the deputy, what the fuck?"

Scott stalked off down the sidewalk, leaving Stiles to run to keep up. "It's just-" Scott said after a few minutes. "She smelled like Allison."

Stiles ducked in front of Scott, stopping him in the middle of the sidewalk. "Who smelled like Allison?" Stiles asked, because it sure as hell wasn't Deputy Rushman.

"Who else?" Scott asked. He pushed past Stiles, but he was moving slower now, so Stiles didn't have to risk a twisted ankle to keep up. 

"Okay, no," Stiles said. He take the knowledge to his grave, but he'd spent enough time in Allison's presence over the last two years to know that she smelled like melon shampoo and that purple body wash stuff, that her psycho wolf-killing family used Tide laundry detergent. 

The deputy hadn't smelled like any of those things in the enclosed space of the car, just the leather of her holster and the fresh scent of the green pines in the woods. 

"She did," Scott insisted. "Like, not on the surface, like under her skin."

Stiles rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly uncomfortable. "You mean, like, a girl thing?"

"No, the other girls don't smell like that," Scott said right away, then he got what Stiles was hinting at. He blushed and threw a punch at Stiles. "Not like," and he lowered his voice, "Not like they're on their period or anything."

"Oh my god," Stiles exclaimed, walking away from Scott. "You can tell when they're-" He couldn't even bring himself to say it. "Oh my god!"

"That's not it!" Scott insisted. 

"Good!" Stiles paused. "Although it would make life around Erica easier at times."

"Shut up, it's just something," Scott said, hurrying to keep up with Stiles. "Like you taste something and know you've tasted it somewhere before, but can't remember where?"

"Maybe it's some Hunter thing? Like wolfsbane aftershave or something?" Stiles suggested.

"No," Scott said right away. "It's not anything I've ever smelled in anyone else. Just Allison."

"Well, that's good," Stiles said. "I wouldn't want-" He pulled up short, nearly tripping over his feet. 

"What's wrong?" Scott asked.

Stiles kicked the ground, frustration welling up in his chest. "Hunters are coming to town, my life is shit, my jeep is stranded at the top of the forest, and it just occurred to me that my dad's spending the night with the hot new deputy," Stiles snapped. "What isn't wrong with my life?"

As if in answer, a familiar black car rolled down the street and slowed to a stop beside Stiles and Scott. The window rolled down, and Derek Hale glared out at them. "In," he said.

They got in.

"We've got a problem," Derek said as he accelerated down the road. "There's been another wendigo attack. Boyd and Jackson are meeting us there."

Scott and Stiles exchanged a glance. So much for that hot pocket, Stiles thought glumly. At least Dad wouldn't be home to miss him.

"What do you need?" Stiles asked, squaring his shoulders.

Time to go save the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles breathed in the stale air of the Beacon Hills High School hallway, and sighed. "It's great to be back, isn't it, Scott?"

Scott, who had been craning his neck this way and that, didn't answer. He was in _Allison locating mode_ and would be useless until he found what he was looking for. With another sigh, Stiles hefted his backpack on one shoulder and fought his way through the crowds to his locker.

His locker was right where he expected it to be, but he wasn't expecting the small redheaded force of nature blocking his path.

"Stiles."

"Lydia." He tried to step around her, but she was immovable. "What?"

She narrowed green eyes at him. "I need to talk to you," she said.

Stiles glanced at the time on his phone. "Can it wait?" he asked. "We're going to be late for homeroom and if I get detention on my first day of school, my Dad's going to be epic pissed."

After a heartbeat, Lydia moved sideways enough for Stiles to get into his locker. "Did you boys have fun last night?" she asked. There was sarcasm and the faintest hint of menace in her voice, just like the Lydia Martin that Stiles had grown up with, and that cheered him like nothing had in days. 

"Yeah, loads of fun," Stiles said, shoving his spare binder into the locker with more force than grace. "If you count running for your life while being pursued by a cannibalistic winter spirit as _fun_ , in which case it was a goddamn trip to Disneyland. You can come next time if you want, it'll be nice not to be the slowest person in the group."

"Not a chance," Lydia said, examining her nails. "This year, the only thing I plan on running for is Class President."

"Not Homecoming Queen?" Stiles slammed his locker shut and hauled ass towards homeroom. Lydia drifted along at his side, perfect poise in three-inch heels. 

"As if," Lydia scoffed. "Class president gets you into Stanford. Homecoming Queen gets you into the free clinic."

"Oh, meow," Stiles said, miming cat claws. "You want a saucer of milk with that?"

Lydia stopped in Stiles' path and whirled on him. He stopped so suddenly he nearly toppled over his own feet and ended up on the ground. Only a quick side-jerk, learned in his many werewolf adventures, saved him the humiliation. "I need to talk to you about Peter," Lydia said.

Stiles nearly dropped his binder on the ground. "Shh!" he hissed. Lydia raised an eyebrow. "Someone will hear you!"

"I'm not the one overreacting at the merest hint of his name," Lydia said. She grabbed Stiles' arm and hauled him along to homeroom. Any other day, Stiles would have been giddy at the fact that Lydia was touching him _voluntarily_ , but Peter Hale was hanging over him like a noose and wasn't that just a mood-killer?

"Have you seen him again since the warehouse?" Stiles asked.

"No, and it's bothering me," Lydia said. "I mean, you don't' just attack me on the lacrosse field, use me to bring you back from the dead, help save my boyfriend from being an evil murderous snake-man, and then _not return my texts_."

It took a moment for Lydia's diatribe to sink in for Styles. "Wait, you contacted him?" Stiles squeaked. "You actually _want_ to talk to that psychopath?"

The first bell rang, and all around them, people started rush to class. Lydia looked at Styles with narrowed eyes. "Tell Derek that if I don't hear from Peter soon, no one will be happy."

She whirled on her heel and stalked into homeroom, leaving Stiles in the hallway, horrified and curious and just the tiniest bit aroused. 

What was _with_ everyone these days?"

* * *

"Tell me again why we have mandatory co-ed gym class in junior year?" Isaac moaned, slumping against Erica. 

"The Beacon Hill School Board mandated gym class for every grade to combat the epidemic of childhood obesity," Lydia seethed from the far side of the group, seated on the gym floor. "This is going to _ruin_ my GPA."

"At least McCall might actually pass a class and get back onto the lacrosse team," Jackson said at Lydia's side. 

"Hey!" Scott protested, jerking around from his long-distance pining after Allison. 

Stiles let his head drop onto his pulled-up knees. This wasn't going to end well. A pack of werewolf puppies in a gym class with thirty of their classmates could only end in tears. 

Or, from the way Erica kept glaring at Allison, bloodshed.

Maybe Stiles could break a leg to get out of class. No, that was too permanent. Maybe a wrist. Or a finger. 

Across the room, the gym doors opened and in stepped a stranger in gym teacher garb. Dark sweats, a BHHS t-shirt, whistle on a lanyard and a clipboard, walking across the floor to the teenagers sprawled on the hardwood. 

At Isaac's side, Erica sat up straight. "Hello, nurse," she murmured. 

"Hello class," the man said, sounding bored. "I'm your new gym teacher, Mr. Barton." 

A hand shot up in the middle of the group. "Where's Coach Finstock?" Lydia asked. She was eyeing Mr. Barton like he was a muscular strawberry Frappuccino. 

"The school board thought that Coach Finstock would be better off teaching AP Economics to the juniors this semester than showing you layabouts how to do laps," Mr. Barton said. 

Another hand. "He's still coaching lacrosse, right?" Danny asked, sounding worried. 

"Yes, you'll see him after school at practice," Mr. Barton said. He lifted his clipboard, inadvertently flexing a bicep as he did so. Stiles had to admit, the man was toting some serious guns. "Any other questions?"

"How much can you bench-press?" Isaac asked, and Erica laughed out loud. 

"None of your business," Mr. Barton said. "Roll call. I hope to only have to do this once, although since this is the last time in your life you get marks for _just showing up_ , don't abuse it."

He went through the list, starting with _Allison Argent_ and running all the way down to _Jackson Whitmore_. 

While the new teacher was taking roll call, Stiles exchanged a worried look with Scott. First a new deputy, and now a new gym teacher? What if one of them was a Hunter? What if they both were? 

Now, a gym class full of werewolves seemed like even more of a bad idea. 

Mr. Barton finished taking attendance. "I'm going to take it as a sign that you kids at Beacon Hill really like gym class , since we have more people in this room than are on my list," he said. "Okay, stand up. We've got stations set up. Five minutes at each, rotate however you want. I'll whistle to change stations."

And with that, Mr. Barton put the whistle between his teeth and blew.

Isaac and Erica sprang to their feet, beating Jackson to the climbing ropes. Half the lacrosse team went for the indoor agility course, while some of the girls drifted towards the skipping ropes. 

Allison headed to the corner of the gym where the archery station had been set up. With another pining look, Scott joined Danny in running laps around the gym. 

Which left Stiles and Lydia. 

"This?" she informed him, "Is the worst first day of school ever."

And with that, she went over to the balance beam.

Stiles turned in a circle to see where all his friends were, and caught Mr. Barton giving him the stink-eye. Not wanting to end up in detention from _gym class_ , Stiles moved towards the closest station, which coincidentally happened to be the archery station.

Allison was ignoring the room, putting arrow after arrow into the target. She didn't react as Stiles edged closer. "So, hi," he said.

Allison let out a long breath, and fired another arrow.

Right. Stiles picked up the spare bow and an arrow, as an excuse to talk to Allison. "How are things?"

Allison paused mid-pull. She slowly let her hand fall back, lowered the bow, and turned to face Stiles. The twisted smile on her face set Stiles' teeth on edge. "Let's see. How could things possibly be?"

Stiles considered answering her, although since Gerard Argent was still missing, Allison's mom was still dead, her father was still a Hunter, and a pile of other Hunters were likely already on their way to town, he wasn't sure he wanted to know.

Instead of speaking, Stiles turned to the target. He put the arrow onto the bow like he'd seen Allison do, pulled back the string, and let go.

The arrow hit the target. 

Allison's target.

"You ever use one of these before?" came an adult voice, and Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin as Mr. Barton materialized at his side. 

"Sure," Stiles lied. "The pointy end goes into the other man."

Alison rolled her eyes. Mr. Barton took the bow from Stiles, slapped an arrow into place, and without so much as a glance at the target, let fly. The arrow buried itself in the exact center of the bull's-eye. 

"Just do that and you'll be fine," Mr. Barton said. He handed the bow back to Stiles and moved to the center of the gym.

"Just do what?" Stiles demanded, but his words were masked by the blast of the whistle. 

At the top of the ropes, Erica slid down, nearly knocking Jackson to the floor. Scott made no effort to stop running circles around the gym, and Allison tossed her hair and moved on to the climbing wall. 

Stiles looked back at the bow in his hand. "Fine," he muttered, picking up another arrow. He wasn't going to let Allison and Mr. Barton make him look like a fool in front of the entire senior year.

Stiles was perfectly capable of doing that all on his own.

* * *

Lacrosse practice was over and Dad was working the late shift at the station again (Stiles suspected that the new deputy sheriff was on duty, which was just _wrong_ because Dad was old and the deputy was hot), which was the only reason that Stiles found himself lying on the old couch in the abandoned train station, listening to Erica and Isaac argue about a homework assignment and Derek brooded while doing shirtless chin-ups.

"And so Lydia's all like, Peter this, Peter that," Stiles recounted. It wasn't even weird any more to be running off at the mouth about his day while Derek ignored him. "And Allison's new pattern of ignoring Scott about everything except the most dangerous parts of our lives is going to become extremely tiresome. Scott's... pining."

Derek grunted. "Tell me about the new teacher."

Stiles twirled a pen between his fingers and hoped that the aches from lacrosse practice would fade before the weekend. "He's totally ripped."

Derek dropped down from the chin-up bar and glared at Stiles. "Tell me something _useful_ about the new teacher." 

Stiles applied his keen detective skills to the case. "Um, like forty? Handy with a bow, although it was inside so who knows if that's just for show. I don't think he's a real teacher, he didn't have any of that touchy-feely participation medal crap going on."

"Military background?" Derek asked, going for his shirt. 

"How should I know?" 

Derek rolled his eyes so hard, Stiles wasn't sure how he didn't hurt himself. "Did he seem like a Hunter?" Derek demanded.

"No," Stiles said. "He wasn't pay attention to any of the weirdness any more than any other teacher does. He did break up a fight between a couple of the guys, but he seemed more concerned that no one kill themselves on the ropes than anything."

"Erica!" Derek yelled. Across the large room, a blonde head popped up from the table. "Is the new gym teacher a Hunter?"

"I don't think so," Erica called. "From the way he was keeping an eye on Allison, I'd say he more interested in her bow work."

"Ew," Stiles said, making a face.

"By which I mean her archery technique, _perv_." Erica turned her attention back to her notebook.

Stiles gave a full body shudder. "Brain bleach, stat."

"Like you're not hung up on the new deputy sheriff?" Derek said unexpectedly.

"I am totally not!"

"Yesterday in the woods, it was _Deputy Rushman_ this and that."

"That's because Scott nearly got arrested for smelling her hair," Stiles snapped. "It was _relevant._ "

Derek appeared wholly unconvinced. 

"And besides, Scott thought she smelled like Allison and that mean Hunter, doesn't it?"

Derek shrugged. 

Stiles flung himself back on the couch. Scott was at home, under Mrs. McCall's mandated homework supervision, so that line of investigation was on hold for now. "Maybe I'll go to the Sheriff's station and see what Deputy Rushman is up to."

Derek looked at him with amusement on his face. "Yeah, you do that," he said, practically laughing at Stiles.

Stiles thought about throwing something at Derek, but that wouldn't end well for him.

So he left the werewolves to themselves.

* * *

It was dinner time when Stiles made it to the station. The Deputy on duty made Stiles sign in, then let him wander back to the Sheriff's office. 

Stiles was already talking when he entered the office, like he always did. "Hey Dad, I made lacrosse first string this year which is basically showing how desperately the Beacon Hills lacrosse team needs to get new blood because _seriously_ \--" 

He broke off mid-sentence when he got his first look into the office and saw Deputy Rushman behind the Sheriff's desk.

All of the worries and fears of Stiles' life coalesced into a single panic point of someone _not his Dad_ sitting at the Sheriff's desk and he nearly freaked out before he realized that Dad was standing by the wall, looking at something on the bulletin board.

"Oh my god," Stiles said, slumping into the visitor's chair. "What the hell."

The Sheriff cleared his throat. "This is my son," he said, addressing the deputy. "Stiles Stilinski. Who has something to say about yesterday." He glared at Stiles.

Stiles straightened up, letting his backpack fall to the ground. Now what? He went back over everything that had happened, and all he could come up with was Scott's appalling behavior. "Sorry about Scott, he's a little special, has this thing for shampoo. In a hairdresser way, not some psycho stalker way," he hastened to add, lest the authorities get the wrong idea about Scott's oddities.

Deputy Rushman pursed her lips into a smirk, and even without lipstick it was so adorable that Stiles forgot how to speak for a moment. 

"Not that," Dad snapped. "About how Deputy Rushman hauled you and Scott off the preserve and you didn't thank her for the ride?"

A momentary hesitation while Stiles reviewed the previous day. What with the wendigo and the jeep breaking down, _thanks_ had seemed totally unnecessary. But Dad was glaring daggers at him, like it was some sort of crime. 

"Thanks so much for the ride, Deputy Rushman," Stiles stammered out in a rush. "It was really very nice of you and you didn't have to so thanks for not leaving us to die in the woods."

The smirk on the woman's face spread out into a full-blown smile, and sweet _jesus_ maybe Stiles did have a crush after all. "I'm glad I could help," she said, sitting back in the Sheriff's chair. 

"You did," Stiles went on, twisting his fingers into the seam of his jeans by his knee, just because. "Do you have a first name? Because 'Deputy' is a mean thing to call a kid."

"Natasha," the deputy said.

"Natasha," Stiles repeated. "Do you go by Nat or Tasha or Natasha -" He caught sight of Dad uncrossing his arms and took the hint, jumping to his feet and grabbing his bag, all without falling over. "Deputy Rushman it is. Have a nice day and see you at home, Dad."

Stiles fled before he could ask the woman to marry him because that was the kind of luck he was having these days.


	3. Chapter 3

The school week passed. Stiles avoided detention, although it was a very close thing in chemistry class. Lydia hadn't let up on Peter, threatening to go directly to Derek, but that left Stiles out of things so who cared. 

On Saturday morning, Stiles hung out in the backroom of the local veterinarian's office, watching Scott mop while he fed bits of lettuce to a sick tortoise. "I'm just saying, it's like neither of them exist," Stiles was saying. "No Facebook, Twitter, nothing. I even looked on MySpace."

"Give it a rest," Scott said. "Not everyone needs to spend hours a day on social media. They're like, old. Old people don't use those things."

"Just because your mom isn't on Facebook doesn't mean other people aren't," Stiles pointed out. "I mean, I get Mr. Barton, he's a jock, but what about Deputy Rushman? Her personal file says she's twenty-eight. She'd have been around when they invented the internet."

"Maybe she changed her name," Scott said, exasperated. "Maybe she likes her privacy. Maybe she has a life that doesn't involve her iPhone!"

"Ouch, someone didn't finish his Wheaties this morning," Stiles said. "Maybe it's an alias. What if she's part of some government conspiracy and has infiltrated the Sheriff's department?"

"For what?" Scott asked. "Nothing happens in this town." At Stiles' incredulous expression, he amended, "Nothing that the government would care about."

"Maybe she's DEA," Stiles mused. "There was that big drug bust last month just outside the county limits. Ooh, or ATF? Gangs in the area?"

"Or maybe," Scott said, mopping with more force than necessary, "She's a Hunter. Maybe they're both Hunters. Maybe we're all screwed."

He sloshed water out of the bucket as he crossed the floor, making Stiles wince. "Allison still won't talk to you, will she?" It wasn't really a question.

"Shut up," Scott told the mop bucket. 

"Whatever." Maybe it made Stiles a bad friend, but Scott's bad mood was seriously harshing his buzz. "I have to go to the library to get some homework done, you need books or anything?"

"Can I copy your math homework?" Scott asked, pausing to lean on the mop handle. "Calculus is already kicking my ass."

"Why don't you just ask Lydia to tutor you?" Stiles asked, dropping the last of the lettuce into the tank and watching the tortoise clomp down on it with her sharp beak. 

"Because Lydia scares me?"

"Might scare you into learning something, you mean," Stiles said, slipping on his backpack. "Text me later."

"Whatever."

Stiles poked his head into Dr. Deaton's office on the way out, giving the veterinarian a wave. The Doc smiled at Stiles. "Are you boys keeping out of trouble at school so far?" he asked.

"Of course!" Stiles lied, giving the Doc a shiny grin. "What could we possibly be getting into?"

"Stiles."

"Yeah, you know." Stiles backed out of the hallway and hit the parking lot at a fast shuffle, not wanting to be drawn into a discussion with Dr. Deaton about wendigos and spirits and creepy stuff. The sun was out and all Stiles wanted to do was hit the library and their anonymous wifi to do some serious research on nocturnal creepy-crawlies and--

He stopped, one foot in the jeep. He had forgotten his laptop at home.

Cursing his slippery memory, and not wanting to have to deal with the ancient library computers, Stiles got into the jeep and pointed it at home. 

The trip was quick and Stiles parked in the street, not wanting to deal with the driveway. He wondered a bit at Dad's car in the drive; after all, Dad had said he was going to spend the first part of the day at the shooting range, and that usually took until after two.

The front door opened quietly and Stiles barged inside, making a dash for the stairs. "Hey Dad, just forgot something—" He stopped, mid-sentence and mid-step, when he got a peek into the living room.

Deputy Rushman was on his couch. 

Deputy Rushman was _on his couch_.

Her hair was down in red waves around her face, in civilian clothes which were _way_ more flattering to her suddenly visible curves, and her eyes somehow seemed bigger than they had before.

Stiles sent a fervent prayer of thanks to the makers of Maybelline.

"Uh, why?" Stiles said, shifting his backpack around. "You, here?"

The Deputy closed the folder on the coffee table, obscuring what Stiles belatedly realized were crime scene photos. "The Sheriff and I were going over old case files," the woman said, leaning back and folding her hands in her lap. 

Stiles looked around the living room. No Dad. "Isn't that what the office is for?" he asked.

"Not if we actually wanted to get some work done," Dad's voice came out of nowhere, making Stiles jump. Dad came into the living room from the kitchen, carrying two coffee cups. "I thought you were going to the library."

"I am," Stiles said, edging into the room to attempt a sneak peek at the folder. From the looks of the writing and the fading around the edges, it was an old file. The folder itself was puke green, unlike anything Stiles had seen in his poking around in the Beacon Hills Sheriff Department's file room. "But you know, I always forget something."

"What was it this time?" Dad asked, handing Deputy Rushman one of the mugs before sitting in his favorite chair. 

"Laptop," Stiles said. He twisted his neck as if to scratch his chin, so he could get a better look at the writing on the folder. All he could make out was the name and a partial date, VASQUEZ, CLARA: DOD 1994-09-...

"Stiles," Dad said, and Stiles jerked his head around and bolted for the stairs. 

What the hell could Dad and the Deputy (now there was a horrible band name) be doing? he wondered as he raced up the stairs. Stiles knew the name of every single person who'd died in Beacon Hills since 1978, thanks to a horrible summer two years before of re-filing at the BHSD after the last major earthquake shook everything down. No one named Vasquez had died in town, of natural causes or otherwise. 

Maybe Derek knew something, Stiles decided, stumbling into his bedroom. He grabbed his laptop with one hand and pulled out his phone with the other. Then he reconsidered. It would be easier (and less likely to show up in document discovery in court; never let it be said Stiles didn't learn anything from watching CSI) if he just asked Derek in person. 

Stiles tumbled down the stairs again in one piece, stopping once again in the living room doorway. Neither Dad nor the Deputy had moved. "Okay, so, later," Stiles said. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

Dad sighed. "When are you going to be in tonight?"

Stiles hesitated. He knew Derek wanted to take the pack into the woods after the wendigo, and even though Stiles himself would be completely useless up against something like a wendigo, he wouldn't be able to let the wolves go off without him. Call him superstitions or insane, it wasn't happening.

"I was going to stay over at Scott's tonight," Stiles said, trying to appear innocent. "His mom's letting up the academic probation so Scott can actually have some fun on the weekends."

Dad fixed Stiles with a glare. "And Melissa knows about this?"

Stiles shrugged. "Scott said he was going to tell her, who knows, right?"

He held his Dad's gaze for one more moment, then flashed a smile at the Deputy and bolted. He didn't really want to think about his father spending time with a woman who wasn't his mother in their house, even though they were probably only going to look at pictures of dead people. 

And anyway. Stiles was like a researching god now. Maybe he'd find out a little bit about Clara Vasquez on his own. 

* * *

At eleven o'clock on a Saturday morning, the only empty chair in Beacon Hills' tiny library was between Lydia Martin and Danny Mahealani. Taking that as a sign, Stiles dropped into the chair and started setting up his laptop on the sliver of clear desk space.

Lydia had three textbooks open in front of her, her four highlighters and three pens lined up in a neat row beside her binder. On Stiles' other side, Danny had his laptop open, three sports magazines in various states of disarray, and half a dozen books piled up haphazardly. Stiles glanced at one of the magazine, open to a spread on the Olympic male swim team, and made an appreciative noise. Danny ignored him, but Lydia hissed, "Shh!"

"Can we just take a moment to admire the ingenuity of modern swimsuit design?" Stiles asked, picking up the magazine and shoving it at Lydia. "They brought sexy back to lowering the friction coefficient in the water."

Danny grabbed the magazine from Stiles. "Stop touching my stuff," he said before putting his headphones back on. 

Lydia stuck her tongue out at Stiles and went back to her chemistry.

Fine. Stiles unzipped his hoodie to get comfortable before flipping open his laptop and connecting to the library's wifi through his usual IP blocking sites. He checked his email and hit refresh on a few blogs, before googling "Clara Vasquez".

The number of search results made Stiles eyes bleed, so he tried "Clara Vasquez dead" and "Clara Vasquez obituary" which didn't help much either.

He rubbed his eyes. He needed to narrow this down, because the name was all he was going to get without breaking into the Sheriff's department and looking at the paper copy of the file, and lord knew that wasn't happening.

The folder had been green, with a logo on the front of it. Stiles wasn't familiar with the design, but if it was a police folder, maybe he could find something that way.

Another quick google search, and he was left a collection of sheriff and police logos listed by state and country. "All hail the internet," Stiles muttered, starting to scroll through New York State's results. Nothing looked familiar, so Stiles hemmed and hawed and decided what the hell, start local and go out from there.

Only he didn't have much _out_ to go because on the first page of results from California, Stiles' eyes landed on the insignia for the Los Angels Police Department and he nearly yelped in triumph.

"Oh my god," Lydia exclaimed under her breath, slapping her textbook closed. "What are you _doing_ and why are you messing up my concentration?"

"The case file, it's from the LAPD," Stiles stage-whispered. Lydia gave him a blank stare. "The case file that my Dad and the new Deputy were looking at when I caught them this morning in my living room."

Lydia's glare grew incredulous. "Are you aware that the rest of us aren't following along with your insanity?" she asked, pulling Stiles' laptop towards her and flipping through his open tabs. "Who's Clara Vasquez?"

"The DB. The dead body."

"The—" Lydia pushed the computer away from her. "You're a freak."

"Says the girl going around town trying to dig up Peter Hale." Stiles modified his search for "Clara Vasquez dead Los Angeles" but even so, the results were useless. "Damnit!"

From Stiles' other side, Danny made an inquisitive noise. "How long ago was it?"

Stiles and Lydia shifted around to look at Danny. "What?" Stiles stammered.

Danny sighed, pulling off his headphones. "Not everything's online, especially in LA. What are you looking for?"

"Um." Stiles tried to figure out if this was a good idea, bringing Danny into his latest obsession, but considering that it wasn't pack business, Stiles couldn't see the harm. Or at least the harm didn't jump out to slap Stiles in the face on first glance. Close enough. "LAPD case file, Clara Vasquez, date of death sometime in 1994 was all I could see."

Danny pulled over Stiles' laptop and opened a new browser tab, going to the Stanford library website and entering a string of numbers and a password. At Stiles' side, Lydia made a small squeal. "You have a Stanford library card?"

Danny shrugged. "My dad went there. He has an alumni card."

"So jealous," Lydia moaned, and Stiles shook his head. Lydia Martin was the only girl he knew who could be wooed with a _library card_. Which was actually sort of hot.

"So," Danny murmured. "There's a project to digitize California's newspapers from eons ago. They probably have 1994 in there." He typed in a few words, and up popped a short list of results. Danny clicked to the top one. "Wait, is that it?"

Stiles and Lydia crowded in for a look at the screen. A scan of the newspaper article was displayed, a short blurb with the headline, **Pregnant Woman Killed in Ravine; Wild Animal Suspected**.

"Oh," Lydia said in a small voice. 

"The body of a young pregnant woman was found in the Guartez ravine outside of Los Angeles on Thursday morning," Stiles read, feeling a little sick. "Clara Vasquez, age twenty-one, had been attacked and killed overnight by what local officials are describing as a large cat or mountain lion. The coroner is investigating the case. Local residents are advised to keep their children and pets inside until the animal is identified and located."

"Didn't they say that it was a mountain lion that was killing all those people in Beacon Hills early last year?" Danny asked.

"That's what they said," Stiles told him. While Lydia knew about werewolves, because Jackson, obviously, Danny still hadn't officially been told about Beacon Hills' unusual populations. 

"Why would the new Deputy be showing your dad a copy of this case?" Lydia wondered. 

"I have no idea," Stiles said. It didn't make any _sense_. Eighteen years ago, the Hales had been alive and wolfing out in the woods. Derek would have been just a little kid. "Maybe because of the cases last year?"

"Let's see if they ever caught the animal," Danny said, skipping to the next article. Unlike the initial article, this one splashed across the page, **Tony Stark's Pregnant Fiancée Killed in Animal Attack**.

Stiles nearly swallowed his tongue. "Wait, the dead woman was engaged to Tony Stark? _Iron Man Tony Stark?_ "

A passing librarian shushed them, but Stiles didn't pay attention, his eyes scouring the article. This reporter had done his homework, finding out that Clara Vasquez, eight months pregnant, had been the fiancée of millionaire Tony Stark, who at twenty years old was the CEO of Stark Industries, which made everything from computers to weapons. 

All of this was _extremely relevant_ to Stiles; he'd been twelve when Iron Man first showed up, a _real-life superhero_ , and Stiles may have developed a little interest.

Okay, screw that: Stiles Stilinski was a _total_ Iron Man fanboy, obsessed with all things Tony Stark, and if there'd been a wet dream or two involving Iron Man, _Stiles wasn't telling_. 

But sitting back in the Beacon Hills library, Stiles stared at the article, which had looked into Tony Stark's whereabouts at the time of the killing, unable to find a hole in the alibi of _presenting to a corporate board in New York City_ at the exact time Clara was killed. 

The article also went into more graphic detail of Clara's death, including that her fetus had been ripped out of her body by the animal and, in the words of the article, 'showed evidence of teeth marks'.

Danny clicked on the little arrow to take them to the next page, where a black and white photo of Clara Vazquez had been reproduced. It must have been supplied by the family, because it didn't have the stark realism of the DMV. In the photo, Clara Vasquez was smiling, her dark eyes crinkling in happiness, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders. 

She'd been killed when she was only four years older than Stiles.

Lydia took control of the computer, elbowing Stiles in the side and typing with a ferocity dangerous to her manicure. If Stiles was a little too obsessed with Iron Man, that was _nothing_ on Lydia's Tony Stark infatuation. As far back as grade school, Lydia had hoarded every scrap of detail on Tony Stark, his public appearances in the gossip magazines, his company's stock performances, every scientific discovery Stark Industries made, every mathematical proof Tony Stark ever worked on.

If Iron Man was Stiles' fanboy crush, Tony Stark was Lydia's spirit animal.

Lydia opened a series of gossip sites and winnowing down on Tony Stark. These days, of course, most of the chatter was about Tony Stark and Iron Man and what happened in New York in May (because aliens and space whales and what the hell?) but as Stiles and Danny watched, Lydia brushed aside the recent noise and zeroed in on Tony Stark's personal life in the early days.

"He doesn't talk about her, ever," Lydia said after a few minutes. "Even in 1994, he never made a public statement on what happened to her or the baby."

Danny shifted in his seat. "When were they going to get married?"

Lydia performed some more internet magic. "The wedding was scheduled for six months after the baby's due date," she said in a minute. "The church was booked and everything."

"Why were they going to wait for so long?" Stiles asked. "I mean, most shotgun weddings happen before the bride starts to show, not long enough for her to lose the baby weight?"

Lydia tapped the screen. "The bride's father was overseas in Malaysia. One of her best friends did a tell-all, saying Clara wanted her dad to walk her down the aisle."

"And instead, she gets ripped to shreds in a ravine," Stiles said. He chewed on his fingernail to keep from vibrating out of his seat. "Why didn't this get dragged out into the news when Tony Stark did the whole Iron Man thing?"

In all his time trolling the Iron Man fansites, Stiles had never come across mention of a fiancée or a baby. 

"You'd think the media would love to drag this up," he murmured, staring at the photo of Clara Vasquez. Something about the photo was eerily familiar, and he couldn't figure out what. Maybe it was the eyes. 

"You'd be surprised what money can hush up," Danny said. "If Tony Stark wasn't a suspect, then it might have died down sooner."

"It's a good thing Stark was across the country," Stiles said, making a screen grab of Clara Vasquez's photo, then flipping through the other articles. "The number one cause of death in pregnant women is homicide, usually by the father-to-be."

"That's horrible," Lydia said.

Stiles didn't look at her. He was the Sheriff's kid, he knew the names of everyone who had been killed in Beacon Hills since 1978; could have brought up the names of the four pregnant women who'd been killed by their boyfriends or husbands in living memory. 

But he didn't.

Stiles finished reading the news articles. "They never figured out what happened, at least that they told the media," he said. "Coroner's results were inconclusive. No mountain lions were ever spotted in the area. Big surprise there."

"So what does that have to do with Beacon Hills?" Lydia asked. 

"Maybe someone's trying to figure out how many people in California have been killed by 'mountain lions'," and he made finger quotes around the words. "But Deputy Rushman said she came from New York."

"Maybe she knows something about mountain lion attacks," Lydia mused. 

Stiles shook his head. "Can we circle back around the to the _Tony Stark_ of all this?" he demanded. "His babymama and baby get chewed on by invisible _mountain lions_ and the man who builds missiles for a living doesn't do _something_?"

Lydia sighed. "For an Iron Man geek, you need to read up on your origin stories," she said, starting to pack away her books. 

"What?"

"Clara Vasquez was killed in 1994, right?" At Stiles' nod, Lydia went on. "When exactly did Stark Industries move primarily into weapons design from computer electronics?"

Before Stiles could figure out an answer, Lydia picked up her bag and walked away.

Stiles turned a questioning eyebrow to Danny, but the other boy already had Wikipedia open. "It was 1995," Danny said after a moment of scanning. "Just about the time they should have had the wedding."

Stiles buried his head in his hands. None of this made any sense. Why would Deputy Natasha Rushman, a woman who didn't appear to have a background of any kind and who would have only been ten years old when Clara Vasquez was killed, be so interested in the case as to bring it to the Sheriff? 

Did it have anything to do with the werewolf killings the previous year, the ones the Sheriff's department had passed off as mountain lion attacks?

Because seriously, what connection could Tony Stark's dead fiancée possibly have to Beacon Hills?

Stiles bit down on his finger so hard that he tasted blood. What if Clara Vasquez had been killed by a werewolf?

And if she had been, it was even more important that Stiles figure out why Deputy Rushman was looking at the case here, eighteen years later, in Beacon Hills.


	4. Chapter 4

"Just another awesome Saturday night," Stiles muttered into the darkness. It was September in Northern California, and the nights hadn't yet turned cold. But the light from the half-moon could only penetrate so far into the pitch blackness of the forest.

He shivered in his hoodie, wondering why, for the tenth time in the past hour, he'd let himself be talked into waiting by the car. 

_It's dangerous_ , Derek had said. _You'll slow us down_ , Derek had said.

"Not nearly as dangerous as it would have been if you'd gone out on your own, you furry grumpy freak," Stiles said. Maybe it hadn't been Derek's words; god knew Stiles never listened to Derek in the past. More likely it had been Scott's puppy dog eyes that had made Stiles hang back.

Stiles didn't want to be the one to distract the werewolves from the hunt.

Three days before, they'd finally figured out what the wendigo was up to, how its seemingly random attacks on pets and livestock in the area were actually showing a pattern. Derek wanted to kill the thing before it got up the focus to attack a human, and for once in his life, Scott agreed.

So sure, the werewolves got to go and play, which left Stiles waiting by the car.

Alone.

In the dark.

While a creature that ate human flesh roamed the woods.

"Great thinking, genius," Stiles told himself. He shook his hands to bring some warmth back to them, then reached for his only weapon, the axe his dad kept in the garage for chopping firewood. The blade wasn't as sharp as Stiles would have liked, but it was better than basting himself in barbecue sauce and presenting himself to the wendigo as dinner. 

Barely.

Stiles tried to focus on the soft sounds in the woods, but his normally keen survival instincts were distracted by the morning's revelations that a) his personal hero Iron Man (okay, Tony Stark, same thing) had once had a pregnant girlfriend who'd been eaten by werewolves, b) that Deputy Natasha Rushman was interested in the cold case and c) his dad was involved in the mix somehow. 

You'd have had Stiles at Iron Man... okay, Stiles would have been on board for anything Deputy Rushman was interested in, but still. The whole mix was a tantalizing mystery that Stiles wanted to dig his metaphoric claws into, but no, he had to tag along on a wendigo hunt and get his skinny human ass abandoned by the car by the wolves.

All alone in the silent woods.

Wait.

Not silent.

Stiles' breath froze in his throat at the soft sound of leaves shifting on the forest floor. Something was moving out there, and all Stiles had for protection was an axe. 

Oh god oh god he was going to get eaten by a cannibalistic monster and-

"Stiles?"

Stiles squeaked, halfway between terror and relief, and lowered the axe. "Allison, what the hell?" he demanded. His heart hammered in his mouth and he kinda wanted to throw up. "What's wrong with you? It's dangerous out here!"

"I know!" Allison whispered. As she moved closer, Stiles could see that she was dressed in head-to-toe black, a deadly looking contraption in her hands. "Why do you think I'm here?"

"Because you have a death wish?" Stiles snapped. "Go home!"

"No!" Allison stooped beside the jeep. In the faint moonlight, Stiles realized that she was holding a crossbow. "Scott told me what they're after. I can help."

"And, what, you decided it was time to get some Hunter street-cred and go after the big bad monster that makes the werewolves piss themselves?" Stiles paused, his hands tightening involuntarily around the axe handle. "Is your dad out there? Did you decide to turn this into some kinds of Hunter party game?"

"No, of course not!" Allison shook her head, her hair falling over her shoulders. Her eyes were very large, and Stiles had never seen her look so determined. 

"Even better, you're out here by yourself." Stiles rested the axe on the hood of his jeep and shook the tension out of his hands. "Oh man, we're both going to die."

Far away, across the forest, a wolf howled. Closer, two wolves responded in a haphazard harmony. 

"Scott doesn't know what he's up against, none of you do," Allison said. "I did some research, I came to help."

"Wait, when did you talk to Scott about this?" Stiles demanded. "Last I heard, he was playing the part of sad puppy because you wouldn't let him chew on your shoes anymore."

"He told me about this, this is _important_."

"Death wish," Stiles muttered. "We're both insane. It's like Lydia is the only person with any sense left in her head-"

From deep in the shadows, something snapped.

Stiles swung around, everything falling out of his head except for the concept of _wendigo_.

Allison raised her crossbow, the metal tip of an arrow glinting in the moonlight. Stiles kept both hands on the axe, knowing it wasn't going to be enough.

In the deep blackness of the woods, a shadow moved. It was just a dark shape, nearly indistinguishable from the other blackness around it, but Stiles' skin crawled at the wrongness of it.

Allison made a small whispered "No," as the darkness moved closer, closer, too tall and too thin and everything _wrong_.

The wind shifted, and Stiles nearly gagged at the stench of decay and corruption on the air. He'd run from the creature the week before, but had never been so close, had never seen how the thing _moved_ \--

The wendigo stepped into the moonlight. 

It was tall, taller than Stiles thought possible. He could just barely make out the lipless mouth, the sharp jagged teeth, the black-on-black pits where eyes had once been. 

The monster let out a breath, like wind rattling through bones in the trees, and the sound brought Stiles back to himself. He elbowed Allison in the side. "Run!" he hissed.

She didn't move for a long moment, her eyes locked on the wendigo. Then her breath caught in her throat and she turned and ran into the forest, Stiles right on her heels.

Behind them in the clearing, there was a hiss and a loud crunching of bone on gravel, then something screamed in fury as it gave chase.

Stiles tasted true fear in the back of his throat. He was going to die and it was going to be horrible and he really, really, didn't want this to happen.

From all over the woods, wolf calls exploded into the stillness. The pack was coming, they'd heard the wendigo's cry, but it wasn't going to be enough.

Allison veered left and Stiles followed her, stumbling blind down a ravine. They came out onto an old logging road, the moonlight showing the forest silent and dark on either side of the cut. 

"Oh great, now it'll have a flat road to catch us on!" Stiles panted.

"There's a stream bed down here, come _on!_ " Allison shouted. She glanced back over her shoulder and kept running, across the road and plunging into the forest once more.

Stiles had no choice but to run after her.

The forest around them was disorienting, distorting the sounds of wolf calls and the menacing bone-rattling wind in the trees. Stiles didn't know if he was running away from the wendigo or towards it. The only thing he could do was to keep Allison in his sights, hold the axe tight so he didn't trip and decapitate himself. 

He had to keep running. If he stopped running, the wendigo would have him. 

Allison stumbled in the streambed and Stiles grabbed her and hauled at her until she was back on her feet. The sibilant wind grew closer, closer, and all Stiles wanted was to wake up and this be a nightmare, but he would never be that lucky.

The streambed ended in a flat clearing surrounded by trees. If they could make it across, maybe they could find someplace to hide, a warren or another ditch, maybe they could hold off the wendigo until the wolves got there, maybe-

Darkness gathered in the center of the clearing and the wind itself screamed in rage, in hunger, in eternal starvation. 

Allison slid to a half and raised her crossbow, firing two arrows at the darkness.

That only enraged the wendigo. Rising up high, so high, nearly as high as the treetops, the wendigo screamed again and lunged for them. Stiles dropped the axe and reached out for Allison, either to shield her or just to have someone to hold on to when they died, it didn't matter.

A gunshot rang out into the night sky, and another. The wendigo jerked with the impact and whirled around. At the edge of the clearing, Stiles spotted someone wearing a distinctive Sheriff's department hat and aiming a handgun at the wendigo.

Someone human. Someone small. 

"Hey!" came Deputy Rushman's voice in a shout. Two more gunshots sounded, and the wendigo screamed into the night. "Over here!"

Another shot, and the deputy disappeared over the ridge, the wendigo following her.

Stiles scrambled to his feet and reached for his axe. "Come on!" he yelled at Allison, momentarily forgetting that a girl might not necessarily want to chase after the monster than nearly killed them. But Allison was on her feet and running towards the spot in the woods where the deputy and the wendigo had disappeared. 

Stiles had to admit, she was nearly as stupid as the rest of them.

By the time they cleared the ridge, the wendigo had Deputy Rushman cornered against a rock wall. She had her handgun up, but neither bullets nor arrows made any impact against the wendigo. 

Wishing this were a nightmare, wishing he were anywhere else, Stiles lifted his axe to run at the wendigo. Tonight would have to be a good night to die.

Out of the darkness, a whistling _thunk_ of a long-distance arrow hit bone, and the wendigo exploded into flames.

Stiles jumped, shielding his eyes against the sudden brightness. "Why the hell didn't you do that sooner?" he yelled at Allison, backing away from the wendigo.

"It wasn't me!" Allison exclaimed, retreating behind the nearest tree. 

Another arrow came out of the darkness, then another and another and another. Each arrow hit a different part of the flailing, screaming wendigo.

"Who else brings a bow and arrows to a wendigo fight?" Stiles demanded. Wolf howls were closing in, and half the wolf pack burst out of the trees, in various stages of wolifitude. Erica, Isaac and Jackson stared at the burning wendigo, while Scott took one look at the clearing before dashing to Allison's side.

"I'm fine," Stiles told his best friend, not expecting Scott to listen. He waved his axe. "Just fine."

Stiles caught sight of Derek deeper in the trees, Boyd at his side. Derek raised an eyebrow at Stiles, and Stiles tried to stand straighter as he raised his hand in salute. 

He was fine.

With a final scream, the burning wendigo collapsed to its knees. Another _thunk_ , and the wendigo's skull was enveloped in a wave of fire.

Deputy Rushman edged around the burning wendigo, looking rather worse for wear. Her hat had fallen off, her uniform was singed to the elbow, and she was covered in dirt. 

But she was still holding her gun.

The woman took in the wolf pack, huddled together with Scott and Allison at one side, and sighed.

"Is anyone here over eighteen?" the deputy demanded. 

It was such an unexpected question that everyone just looked at each other. Stiles spotted faint movement behind them as Derek and Boyd melted back into the shadows. 

"Is anyone hurt?" the deputy tried again.

Stiles tried to shape his mouth into a question, but no words came out. There was a giant burning monster in the middle of the clearing and she was asking _what_?

"Um," Stiles tried, stepping between the pack and Deputy Rushman. "You? Are you okay?"

She pursed her lips and gave him such an annoyed glare that Stiles ducked his head. "Saturday night fun is over, kids," she said. "Everyone goes back to the car and we all go back to town."

Stiles waved his axe at the burning wendigo body. "Shouldn't you radio in for fire suppression?" he asked. "Everyone has to do their part to prevent forest fires."

Erica snorted, while Isaac jabbed Stiles in the ribs to make him shut up. 

Deputy Rushman ignored him. "I know that not a single one of you is legally an adult, so everyone turn around and go _back_ the way you came. We're going back to town." 

Scott stepped forward, his face eerily illuminated in the flames from the burning wendigo. "We're not going anywhere," he said firmly.

"Oh my god, Scott, _shut up_ ," Stiles moaned. They were already in so much trouble, with the wendigo and Stiles' ongoing lies to his dad and having _no_ idea who set the wendigo on fire with mystery arrows. The last thing they needed was to antagonize the short angry woman with the gun. Stiles didn't even mind leaving his jeep in the woods overnight if it meant they could get away from the burning wendigo.

Deputy Rushman stared at Scott for a long moment, long enough for the other werewolves, all mercifully back in human form, to fidget nervously. "Mr. McCall," she finally said, "You are going to turn around, go back to the road, and everyone is going back to town together. Do you understand?"

Her voice lowered in pitch on the last three words, and Stiles had to struggle against his instincts to obey. It was the voice of a parent, a drill sergeant, a regent, someone to whom disobedience was _not in in the realm of possibility_. 

Jackson shifted his weight so he was half-hidden behind Isaac; Erica wrapped her arms around herself and wouldn't meet anyone's gaze. Scott balled his hands into fists, still trying to face down the Deputy, but barely. Allison just looked confused.

Stiles didn't want to see what would happen if Scott lost it; he was hyped up from the wendigo chase and if he thought Allison was in danger, he might do something very stupid in front of Deputy Rushman. Stiles couldn't let that happen.

Shifting the axe handle to his left hand, he reached out and grabbed Scott's upper arm. "Let's just go back to town, okay?" Stiles pleaded. "Scott, man, come on."

It took a moment, but Scott let out a breath and hunched his shoulders, the tension leaving his body. Slowly, everyone turned around and headed away from the burning wendigo, back toward the road. 

Deputy Rushman waited until the kids were moving, only then holstering her gun and picking up her battered hat. Stiles waited until he caught her eye in the moonlight. "Seriously, what are we going to do about the fire?" he asked.

"Don't worry about it," she said. She never looked back. 

Stiles shook his head and concentrated on staying upright in the dark. Now that the adrenaline rush from his imminent death was fading, he could feel the pain of a dozen new bruises on every part of his body. Just another Saturday night in Beacon Hills, he thought with a hint of bitterness.

In the clearing, the wolves gathered around the patrol car. Allison was standing apart from Scott, and Stiles stifled a sigh at the path that young puppy love was taking. He was too old for the drama.

Deputy Rushman went around to open the driver's door, tossed her hat onto the seat, and popped open the trunk. "Weapons in back," she said. 

Nobody moved.

"Axes and crossbows in the trunk," the woman said again. From the murderous expression on her face, Stiles was pretty sure her next step would be to forcibly remove the axe from his hands, and she would not be gentle.

Stiles stepped forward to put the axe into the trunk, which promoted Allison to unhitch her crossbow and place it into the trunk. Her bag of arrows went in next.

"Anyone else?" Deputy Rushman asked.

After the briefest of hesitations, Erica reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a taser. 

"What, seriously?" Isaac asked. 

"I didn't see you with any better ideas, hotshot," Erica retorted, tossing the taser into the trunk.

Deputy Rushman slammed the trunk. "In."

Allison moved first, crawling into the front seat and staring resolutely out of the windshield. Scott tried to follow her, but Deputy Rushman was pushing through the crowd, deftly deflecting Scott into the back seat next to Jackson. Erica was eyeing the front seat with hostility, so Stiles decided to do his part to prevent bloodshed and slipped into the front seat next to Allison. 

With the werewolves squashed in the back seat and Allison ignoring Stiles in the front, Deputy Rushman closed her door and started the car.

The car interior headed up quickly, with four werewolves and three humans, so Stiles rolled down the window. The night air didn't do much to dissipate the smell of dirt and smoke, however, and Stiles doubted he'd be able to stand burning meat anytime in the near future. 

"Why were you out in the forest preserve?" Isaac asked after a few minutes of ominous silence. 

"It's on my patrol," Deputy Rushman told him. She slowed the car to negotiate the turn on the paved part of the highway. Stiles waited for the inevitable questions from her about what they had been doing out there, what that _thing_ was, but the Deputy seemed content with driving through the night in silence.

Scott leaned forward, dumping Isaac onto Jackson's lap, to grip the metal grill separating the back seat from the front of the cab. "Allison..." he started to say, but Allison refused to look at him. Stiles turned around to give his friend a sympathetic glance. The hurt on Scott's face was apparent.

Stiles saw Jackson turn around to look out the back window. Erica had tensed, and even Isaac looked worried.

"What is it?" Stiles asked, his stomach giving a sickening flop.

"There's someone behind us," Jackson said softly. 

Stiles craned around, bumping into Allison as he did so. "There's nothing out there," he pointed out. The road behind them was dark, a few spare feet illuminated by the red taillights of the car.

"It's getting closer," Erica whispered.

Faintly, through the open window, came the whine of a motorcycle engine.

Stiles sat back in his seat, staring at Deputy Rushman. The woman didn't appear to be paying attention to the conversation at all. "Deputy, seriously, maybe we should take a different route," Stiles said in a rush, because while at any other time it would be more important to laugh off the more supernatural abilities of the people in the car, Stiles had nearly been eaten once today and he'd reached his limit for unexplained shit.

"There's nothing to worry about," the Deputy said, unconcerned. 

Someone in the backseat breathed in sharply as the engine sound grew closer. Stiles looked over his shoulder just in time to see a motorcycle running without lights appear in the taillights' glow. Just as quickly, the bike accelerated around the cruiser and sped into the distance. In the light from the car's headlights, Stiles saw that the motorcycle rider wore a helmet with the visor down, obscuring the driver's face.

Then the bike took a curve and vanished from sight.

Allison pulled her legs up to her chest, making the seating arrangements even more awkward. No one in the car said anything, but in the backseat the werewolves hunched in on each other for comfort. 

Deputy Rushman kept driving.

* * *

The scene at the Sheriff's station was singularly unpleasant. 

The Sheriff was there as Deputy Rushman ushered the six teenagers into the break room, the only room besides a holding cell large enough to hold that many people. He didn't say anything, waiting until the Deputy joined him in the corridor for a whispered conversation too quiet even for werewolf hearing. 

When the Deputy and Stiles' dad came back into the break room, the Deputy having taken the time to change into a non-burned shirt, Stiles was half convinced they would all be charged with trespassing and mischief and thrown in lock-up for the night, what was left of it.

Dad cleared his throat, putting on his Sheriff persona. "This is strike three," he said. "If I hear of _any_ of you kids trespassing in the woods after dark again, I'm filing criminal charges. You're nearly old enough for that to stay on your permanent records. Do you understand me?"

A chorus of muted yeses. Stiles noted with interest that Allison had been the only person in the room to not respond. 

"Your parents have all been notified, you're staying here until they come pick you up," the Sheriff went on. 

"What?" Jackson demanded. Scott looked wildly at Stiles, but Stiles could only shrug. It wasn't like it was his fault, and at least Mrs. McCall would understand the werewolf part of things. 

In his seat at the sofa, Isaac slumped down, staring at the ceiling. That got Stiles moving. "Uh, Dad, about Isaac-"

" _No_ , Stiles," the Sheriff bit out. He turned his back on the room and walked out. Deputy Rushman gave the group one last look, and closed the door on her way out.

The wait was excruciating.

Jackson's dad showed up first, looking remarkably awake and pissed off for three o'clock in the morning. He hauled Jackson out of the room without a word, but everyone could hear Mr. Whitmore berating Jackson down the hallway.

Erica's mom was next. She seemed confused about the situation, but at least she patted Erica on the shoulder once she realized her daughter was all right. Erica ducked her head in embarrassment, but she let her mother keep hold of her arm.

"You too, Isaac," Mrs. Reyes said. "You can sleep on the couch tonight."

Isaac looked up in bewilderment, but he wasted no time in bouncing to his feet and following mother and daughter out the door.

At Stiles questioning look, Scott said, "Sometimes Isaac stays at Erica's place. Sometimes he stays with Boyd."

"Good," Stiles said. Ever since the kanima had killed Isaac's bastard father the previous year, Stiles hadn't been too clear on how Isaac was surviving. Yeah, he could hang out with Derek at the abandoned bus station, but that wasn't any way to live. Which Stiles had told Derek repeatedly, but whatever.

Allison hadn't said a word since they came into the room. Stiles figured that with Derek's pack gone, he might be able to get something out of her, especially since Scott wasn't doing his end to hold up Team Exposition.

"Was the guy on the bike one of yours?" Stiles asked.

Slowly, Allison turned her head to look at him. She had fresh scrapes on the side of her face from where she'd fallen against a tree, and the red swelling contrasted against the sickly pallor of her skin. "I don't think so," she said. 

"What, don't you know?"

Stiles waited for an explosion, for her to yell or scream or something, but Allison only pulled her legs back up to her chest and went back to staring at the vending machine.

"What about..." Stiles craned his neck around to make sure Deputy Rushman wasn't standing in the doorway. "You know. Her."

Allison shrugged. 

"Allison," Scott started, but Allison physically turned away from him. "Why won't you talk to me?"

"Because I told you before," Allison said repressively, "I don't need you to protect me. That's all you're going to say, so _save it_." 

"That's not it-"

"Then what?"

"Just-" Scott fumbled with the words. Honestly, watching the soap opera was wearing on Stiles' last nerve. "You're _important_."

"I can take care of myself," Allison shot back. The argument would likely have devolved into shouting, but then by some miracle, the door to the break room opened, and Deputy Rushman escorted Mrs. McCall inside.

"Oh, thank god," Mrs. McCall said, hurrying over to Scott and running her hand over his head. "You scared me."

"Mom..." Scott said, shifting into his _reassuring mom_ phase. "It's cool."

"Oh, baby. You are in so much trouble I can't even begin to express it," Mrs. McCall said, not missing a beat. She turned to Stiles and Allison. "You two?"

"Oh, in trouble too," Stiles said brightly. 

"Not what I meant." Mrs. McCall snapped her fingers at Stiles. "Up."

Recognizing that she'd gone into nurse mode, Stiles stood and let her look him in the eyes, turning his head this way and that. "See? No concussion, no paralysis, we're good."

"Uh huh," she said. "You take a tumble?"

Stiles looked down at the dirt caking his clothing from his handful of encounters with the forest floor. "New fashion statement."

"Stiles," she warned before looking over at Allison. "What about you, sweetie?"

Allison wouldn't meet Mrs. McCall's eyes. "Fine."

Deputy Rushman shifted in place by the coffee machine, and Stiles held his breath. He didn't even _think_ that Allison might have been hurt, but she'd been acting weird all night.

"Fine, huh," Mrs. McCall said softly. She moved to sit in the chair next to Allison, every action unthreatening and calm. "Just a few scratches?" 

Allison hesitated, but then slowly extended her left arm. Mrs. McCall gently pulled back Allison's jacket sleeve to reveal a long bloody cut down her forearm.

"I think it was a tree branch or a rock," Allison said as Mrs. McCall peeled the blood-caked shirt sleeve away from the scratch. In a couple of places, the fabric was caught in the wound, and fresh drops of blood welled up when the fibers were pulled free. "It doesn't hurt."

Mrs. McCall smiled as if she actually believed Allison. "Does it hurt when you move your fingers?" she asked, waiting for Allison to shake her head. "You're pretty lucky, it's not deep. You won't even need stitches, but your dad might want to take you to the emergency room, just in case." 

Allison pulled her arm away from Mrs. McCall. "It's fine," Allison said. "You should take Scott home."

"No, it's okay," Scott said quickly. "Mom, you can take care of her, right?"

But Mrs. McCall was already standing up. "We should go before Allison's dad gets here," she said to Scott.

"Why?" Scott asked, proving to Stiles that he was quite possibly the densest werewolf ever to grace the California woods. 

"Scott," Mrs. McCall said. "We'll talk about it in the car."

Stiles just hoped that Scott's mom would point out that a Hunter might not be too thrilled that his daughter's werewolf ex-boyfriend was around when said daughter got into a fight with a wendigo.

"But Allison-"

"Will be safe here," Deputy Rushman said from the doorway. "Listen to your mother, Scott."

With one last pleading look at his mom, Scott slowly crossed the room, pausing by Allison's side. He put his hand on her shoulder in a gesture that was strangely adult. After a moment, without looking at him, Allison touched the back of his hand with her fingertips.

Scott didn't say another word as his mother hurried him out of the room.

Deputy Rushman let out a long sigh. "Let me guess," she said. "You don't want your dad around Scott."

Allison shook her head. "It's a bad idea."

"Bad ideas seem to be the order of the day." Deputy Rushman went over to the cabinet and pulled out the industrial-sized first-aid kit. "Let's see if we can get that arm cleaned up before your dad gets here." 

Allison spared a glance at Stiles while the Deputy unpacked the kit. "Aren't you ever going to get to go home?" she asked.

Stiles raised his eyebrows. "I'm thinking that I'll be lucky if Dad doesn't throw me in lock-up for the rest of the month."

A smile ghosted across Allison's face. "You'll be fine," she said, then winced as the Deputy started to clean the scrape with gauze. 

"Sorry about this," the Deputy said with a forced smile. "Just want to get the dirt out before I put some bandages on."

"It's okay," Allison said. "I thought... it usually stings more."

"I'm using saline," Deputy Rushman said. She was very precise, Stiles noted, wetting one gauze square, wiping at the edges of the wound, then setting the bloodied square aside before reaching for another. "We'll use an antiseptic cream at the end."

"Okay," Allison said. She never took her eyes off her bloodied arm. 

"Hey," Deputy Rushman said, nudging Allison's hand. "What you did tonight was very brave."

Color came into Alison's cheeks. "I ran away."

"Sometimes running away is the smart thing to do," Deputy Rushman said. "I did a bit of running myself, remember?"

"That's different," Allison argued. 

"Not really," Deputy Rushman said mildly. She reached for the tube of antiseptic ointment and busied herself with dressing Allison's wound. "Fear is important. It's what keeps us alive."

"That, and running really fast," Stiles said from the far side of the room. "You should have seen her, it was like trying to keep up with a camel."

Allison glared at him. "Did you just compare me to a camel?" she demanded.

"What? Camels are really fast!"

"Yeah, and they spit!"

Whatever Stiles would have said caught in his throat as the door to the break room opened, and the Sheriff led in Mr. Argent.

Allison went pale, looking back down at her arm. 

Mr. Argent let out a breath. "Allison. Let's go," he said.

Deputy Rushman finished tying the gauze around Allison's arm, securing the bandage in place. "Check it out tomorrow morning, just to make sure there's no swelling or infection," she told Allison. "And you might want an ice pack for that cheek."

"Allison," Mr. Argent said again. He refused to look at Stiles, which was just fine with Stiles. 

Allison slowly unfolded herself from the chair and stood. Unlike Scott's mom, Mr. Argent made no attempt to touch Allison or see if she was all right. And yeah, Stiles might have been a little biased and judgmental in the matter, but still. 

"Sorry to have taken so long, Sheriff," Mr. Argent said. "We're sorry to have troubled you."

Dad had his hands on his hips, like he didn't have anywhere else to be. "Part of the job," was all he said.

When Allison crossed the room, Mr. Argent put his hand on her back. "We'll be going home now," he said, guiding Allison out of the room. He stopped them in the doorway. "There's a small matter of Allison's property..."

Stiles wanted to exclaim out loud, because really? Chris Argent was going to make a point about a stupid crossbow, now? But Deputy Rushman just got to her feet and crossed her arms over her chest, causing Mr. Argent to really look at her for the first time. "Possession of a spring-loaded crossbow is illegal in California," she said, all law and order. "Since this your daughter's first offence, we won't be pressing charges, but the weapon has been confiscated."

Mr. Argent's expression didn't change. "That's very kind of you," he said. "Again, Sheriff, sorry to have troubled you."

And with that, Mr. Argent guided Allison into the hall. 

"What-" Stiles started to say, but Dad lifted a hand. He appeared to be listening for something. In the distance, Stiles heard Mr. Argent say something to the deputy at the front desk, then the entrance door to the building opened and closed.

Letting out a long sigh, the Sheriff crossed the room to drop into the chair next to Stiles. Deputy Rushman started to clean up the mess of bloodied gauze, turning her back to give the men some privacy.

Stiles wondered what Deputy Rushman had told Dad about the woods, if she'd explained what had burned, if she'd knew who had been firing those arrows. 

He steeled himself to lie, ready for yet another brick in the wall he was building between him and his father.

But all Dad said was, "Is Allison going to be all right?"

"Huh?" Stiles sat up, wincing at the pull on his bruises. "Yeah, Deputy Rushman cleaned her all up."

Dad sighed again. "I mean, at home."

It took Stiles a moment to parse what his father was asking. "Yeah, I guess," Stiles said. It wasn't like Allison had the most awesome home life, with the creepy Hunter training her dad kept putting her through, and her mother being dead and her grandfather all insane and missing. But it wasn't like her dad _beat_ her or anything, at least as far as Stiles knew.

Dad ran his hand over his face, looking very tired. "Maybe I'll stop by tomorrow and see how things are going," he mused.

Stiles rubbed at his eyes. It was nearly five in the morning and the lack of sleep was starting to catch up with him. "Dad, it's all right."

If he didn't listen to himself too closely, Stiles might even believe it himself.

Deputy put the first aid kit back in the cabinet. "I'll see you tomorrow, Sheriff," she said. "You too, Mr. Stilinski."

Well, that sounded terrifying, but Stiles just gave a small wave as the deputy left, carrying a small biohazard bag full of bloodied gauze.

Dad leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Son," he said when they were alone, and Stiles readied himself for anything. "I need you to tell me the truth about something."

Stiles' insides quailed, but he managed to nod. "Okay."

But Dad wasn't quite so ready. It took him a minute to ask, addressing the far wall the whole time, "It's about Scott. Is he... he's a good kid, right?"

Stiles went completely still. There was something underlying Dad's question, but Stiles didn't know _what_. 

For a brief, panic-inducing minute, Stiles wondered if Dad might know that Scott was a werewolf. But no, that was impossible. How could Dad keep his knowledge of werewolves secret from Stiles?

"Yeah, Dad, Scott's the best, like the literal best," Stiles said eventually. "I wouldn't be friends with him if he wasn't, you know that."

"Yeah," Dad said. "Yeah, I guess that's right." He stood up. "Let's get home, I'm too old for this. We can talk in the morning."

Stiles bounded to his feet, nearly toppling over the neighboring chair. Dad hauled him upright, patting his back with more vigor than Stiles' bruises appreciated. 

"Your mother..." Dad said, and Stiles went rigid. His dad never brought up Stiles' mother. What could he mean? 

Dad tightened his grip on Stiles' arm. "Your mother would have kicked your ass up and down for this stunt," he said softly. "She's have been proud you stuck with your friends, but she'd have kicked your ass."

Stiles swallowed around the lump in his throat. "Yeah," he managed. "Yeah, she would have."

"Come on, son, let's get you home and to bed," Dad said, and let Stiles lean on his arm as they walked down the hallway, out into the early morning silence of Beacon Hills. 

_To be continued_


	5. Chapter 5

Stiles woke at noon, returning to consciousness with an adrenaline hangover and a dry mouth. Slamming back two cans of Red Bull fixed both problems in short order, thankfully. Stumbling around the house, Stiles discovered a note from Dad on the fridge, which could be summarized as _if you go to the forest preserve by yourself, you're dead._

Whatever. And it wasn't like Stiles could get up there by himself; what was he going to do, walk?

His phone had two sad texts from Scott, one youtube link of kittens from Isaac (seriously, what?) and a CALL ME from Lydia.

That last was strange enough to make Stiles squint at his phone. Why would Lydia want to talk to him? It wasn't like anything had happened to Jackson the previous night in the woods.

Stiles might hate himself because of the Pavlovian conditioning at play, but he'd never be able to ignore a direct order from Lydia Martin.

She answered on the third ring. "Oh my god, you're finally awake."

"Uh," Stiles said intelligently.

"How much is it worth to you if I found out more about Clara Vasquez' death?" Lydia asked sweetly. 

Stiles nearly tripped as he hopped around his room, pulling on his pants. "Really? You found out stuff?"

"How much?"

Stiles stepped wrong in a pile of laundry and fell onto his bed. "Lattes for a week!" he promised, trying to button his jeans while keeping the phone to his ear. 

"Two weeks, and there had better be sprinkles," Lydia said, smug. "Get downstairs, loser, we're going to get your jeep."

What? Stiles looked out the window, and sure enough, Lydia's car was sitting in his driveway.

"Jesus! Stalker much?" Stiles exclaimed. He grabbed his hoodie and ran out of his room. "You couldn't just email me?"

"Nice try," Lydia said. "I email you, then you and McCall go off and have all the fun."

"You call what we go through fun?" Stiles paused in the kitchen long enough to grabs some Slim Jims from the pantry, then picked up a power bar in case this day went longer than expected. "You can have all the fun you want, sister."

"Why aren't you down here yet?"

Stiles grabbed his keys, locked the front door without dropping anything, and nearly dove into Lydia's car. "Say what now?"

Lydia rolled her eyes at him. "Jackson told me what happened last night," she informed Stiles as she started the car and drove down the street. "Since when are you and Allison such good monster hunting buddies again?"

"I had no idea she was going to be there!" Stiles objected. "Where's Jackson?"

"His father mandated a family togetherness day," Lydia said derisively, eyes on the road. "He even made the whole family go to church this morning."

Stiles shuddered in sympathy. "And Jackson wasn't struck by lightening on the way in?"

Lydia punched Stiles in the shoulder. "Shut up, troglodyte. Do you want to know what I found out or not?"

"Lattes for two weeks, remember?"

Lydia stopped at a red light. "I had to go into the Spanish-language papers, but turns out there was a series of killings in the year leading up to Clara's death," she said. "Like, only a handful, but it was the same method of killing. The police ignored the connections, because they were scattered all over the San Fernando valley, but the community knew something was up."

"What kind of killings?" Stiles asked around a mouthful of Slim Jim.

"The victims had their throats slashed with something sharp," Lydia told him. 

"Claws?" Stiles hazarded.

"The reports said maybe a knife," Lydia said. "No one thought it was animals."

"So how is this connected to Clara Vasquez?" Stiles demanded. "They said she was killed by wild animals."

Lydia smiled widely. "Because the last victim, Hugo Garcia, was stable master for Victor Vasquez, Clara's father."

It was probably a good thing that Stiles wasn't driving, because he jerked around to stare at Lydia. "Are you serious?" 

"I'm always serious," Lydia said with a toss of her head. "Go on, tell me you love me."

"Lydia Martin, you're a goddess amongst peasants," Stiles breathed. "You're _brilliant_!"

Lydia smiled again. "I should have asked for lattes for a month," she mused.

"For that, you need to figure out the connection between who killed Clara and who killed the others," Stiles said. "Wait, where are we going?"

"The train station," Lydia said, turning into the industrial district. "You're not the only one who want to talk to Derek about this."

The abandoned train station where Derek kept his low-budget version of the bat cave was quiet for this time of day, but Stiles knew how to get in, at the third door near the broken-down pay phone. He stepped into the building, holding the door for Lydia to enter, then closing it behind him with a clang.

The building was in its eternal mid-day twilight, but they could see enough to make their way across the floor towards the train car. Derek sat slumped on the disreputable-looking couch, frowning at a book. "What do you want?" he asked without looking up as Stiles and Lydia approached. 

"World peace. Or maybe cupcakes," Stiles said, jumping onto the couch beside Derek. "You're welcome, by the way. For saving your ass last night with the wendigo."

With a sigh, Derek closed his book. "Is that what you were doing?" Derek asked. "It looked a hell of a lot like running for your life."

"Which in turn saved your ass," Stiles told him. "See?"

Derek looked over at Lydia, who perched gingerly on the cleanest surface she could find, an overturned milk crate. "You never come down here, what do you want?"

Lydia folded her hands in her lap, one of her nervous gestures. "Stiles was doing research on a cold case that the new deputy is looking into--"

The look Derek threw in Stiles' direction was pointed, as he mouthed _Deputy?_

"--and since I wasn't invited last night, I did some more digging and thought maybe you could help us."

"All right," Derek said, sounding highly amused by the whole situation. "What do you want to know?"

"There were a series of murders in 1993, in southern California," Lydia said, pulling a piece of paper out of her pocket and handing it to Derek. "The last victim was Hugo Garcia, who ran the stables for Victor Vasquez. His daughter Clara Vasquez was killed when she was eight months pregnant."

Stiles had been watching Derek during Lydia's explanation, so he saw how Derek went completely still when she said the name _Vasquez_.

"What?" Stiles demanded. "You know who Clara is? Was she killed by werewolves? What about the others? What happened?"

Derek let out a slow breath, looking into the shadows of the station. "I can't talk about it," he said.

Stiles shot to his feet. "Why the hell not? It was nearly eighteen years ago!"

"Because," came a horribly familiar voice from the darkness, "What happened to the Vasquez family is a cautionary tale we tell our children, _Be careful or the Boogeyman will get you like they got the Vasquez pack._ "

Peter Hale walked out of the shadows, hands in his jacket pockets. Lydia went rigid, only her eyes moving to track Peter across the floor. 

"Clara Vasquez was a werewolf?" Stiles demanded. 

"Born that way," Peter said. His voice was jovial and kind and not a little insane. "All the people on that list of yours, also werewolves. No one ever knew if they were killed by other werewolves or by Hunters, but when the eldest daughter of the Vasquez Alpha was ripped to shreds in a ravine, do you know what happened?"

Everything about Peter's voice made Stiles sick to his stomach, but there was no way he could walk away now. He needed to know. "What?"

Peter smiled. "Civil war," he said. "The Vasquez pack had been dominant in Southern California for over two hundred years, and when Clara was killed, they went to war."

Stiles swallowed hard. "You mean, with...."

"Other werewolves," Peter supplied for him. "The first seven people who were killed that year? Other packs had been sniffing around Vasquez territory for years, no one thought much of it, just the usual boundary squabbles."

Stiles thought about objecting, because seven dead werewolves didn't sound like a _squabble_ , but Peter didn't give any space to object.

"Then Hugo Garcia went down, and finally Clara and her baby." Peter stepped into Stiles' personal space, his blue eyes sparkling. "You know what happens when an Alpha loses a child like that, Stiles?"

Stiles couldn't speak, couldn't think, couldn't do anything except be reminded exactly how many Hales had died in the fire. 

Then Derek was between him and Peter, pulling Stiles behind him. "Stop it," Derek growled at Peter. "He didn't do anything."

With the separation from Peter, Stiles could breathe again. He stepped around Derek and went to sit beside Lydia. She moved imperceptibly, slipping her shoulder behind Stiles' body.

"He asked," Peter objected, but the moment had passed. "Bad things happen in life, Stiles. Lots of bad things."

"But there were no more bodies," Lydia said faintly. "In the papers, it didn't say anything about any more murders."

"Because we know how to keep things to ourselves," Peter told her. "A lot of people died, on all sides." He smiled, teeth sharp in the dim light. "A father's grief can be a powerful force."

And Stiles had to swallow his words, because he had seen the police file on the fire, knew that while Peter might be insane, he'd lost his wife and their two small children in the fire Kate Argent started, years before. 

And just look at what Peter Hale had done in retaliation.

"This..." Stiles' voice cracked. "So this doesn't have anything to do with Tony Stark?"

Peter frowned at him. "Who?"

"Tony Stark, Clara's boyfriend. The baby was his."

"He was human, right?" Peter shrugged. "If he's still alive, then Victor must have been sure he wasn't involved."

"The baby was a girl," Lydia blurted out. "I--I found some more stories. It would have been a girl."

Peter and Derek exchanged glances. "That would have pissed off Victor," Peter said. 

"Why?" Stiles asked. Maybe some old-school patriarchal preference for sons among werewolves?

It was Derek who answered. "In families like ours and the Vasquezes, the wolf is genetic. But a girl born to a werewolf mother and a human father wouldn't turn. She'd carry the genes but wouldn't be a werewolf herself."

"Isn't that a good thing?" Stiles asked. 

"To some people," Derek responded.

"Wouldn't matter to a Hunter," Peter said. "Born to a wolf, you're as bad as they are." A smile ghosted over his face. "Worse. Still need to be put down so they don't breed true."

He might have said more, but some sound for the far side of the open space pulled Derek around to alertness. Stiles looked around wildly, his heart racing with perceived danger. This week had had wendigos and succubae and seriously, what _now_?

Out of the shadows, moving impossibly quietly in standard law enforcement issue boots, stepped Deputy Natasha Rushman.

Stiles' eyes nearly popped out of his head. What was the woman _doing_ here? 

"Can I help you?" Derek asked, stepping into the light as Peter faded into the shadows. "This is private property."

"It is," Deputy Rushman agreed, stopping in the middle of the room. She hooked her thumbs into her service belt. "Not, however, yours."

Stiles jumped to his feet. "Deputy, what are you doing here?" he asked, rubbing his hands on his hoodie and trying to appear innocent of all wrong-doing. 

The woman didn't spare Stiles a glance, keeping all her attention on Derek. "I'm looking for Vernon Boyd," she said. "He was in the woods last night with several trespassing minors up on the forest preserve, and I'd like to have a few words with him."

"I'm afraid I can't help you," Derek said, smiling blandly at the Deputy.

"And I'm not leaving until I see him," Deputy Rushman said. "He's not at his job and there's no one answering at his house."

"Why do you think he'd be here?" Derek asked.

The Deputy didn't answer for a long moment, silence filling the warehouse like a tangible thing. Then she drew breath and stepped out of the light, moving through shadows, closing in on Derek. When she was near enough for Derek to do some serious damage if he decided, she stopped again. "Mr. Hale," she said, oblivious to Stiles' heart attack, "I'm not interested in why you're here, or why these two juveniles are hanging out with you in an abandoned building. I'm only interested in verifying Mr. Boyd's wellbeing."

Her voice was low and solid, full of the richness of someone who was never disobeyed. She'd made Scott and the other werewolves nearly cower the night before with that voice, and now Stiles wanted to do was to jump to obey.

But Derek was an Alpha, albeit a somewhat unconventional one, and when Deputy Rushman spoke to him, all he did was smile.

Flashing just a hint of fang.

"What's in it for me?" Derek asked, still smiling rather, well, wolfishly.

Deputy Rushman tilted her head to the side, exposing the soft skin of her throat. "I see Mr. Boyd, I leave. Otherwise, I might get more interested in exactly what goes on in this place."

As threats went, it wasn't subtle. Stiles really wanted Derek to see reason, for while nothing incriminating was out in the open, Stiles knew the inside of the train car was still covered in human blood from the last full moon (one of the side effects of the inevitable Erica vs. Isaac bitch-fight), not to mention the wolf-proof bondage gear. Because Stiles was pretty sure that a) Derek didn't want to explain that to the cops and b) Stiles really, really didn't want to explain to his father.

Derek's smile widened. "You're Deputy Rushman, aren't you?" 

The woman nodded. 

Derek stepped away from the woman and went back over to the couch. It wasn't a retreat, more like the wolf had gotten bored. Stiles, who had been playing close attention to Derek's wolfy mannerisms for a long time now, knew that every single movement the man made had been calculated, and how it must have taken a great deal of effort to move so casually. 

Flopping down onto the couch, Derek called up into the darkness of the warehouse, "Boyd, can you come down here for a minute?" He picked up his book. "You know, Stiles," Derek said conversationally, "Your description of Deputy Rushman really didn't do her justice."

Stiles' heart sank into his shoes. "I, uh," he blustered, unable to meet the Deputy's sudden death-glare. "Really, because I do remember saying she was _very professional_."

"He did," Derek told the Deputy. "I believe the word ‘efficient' also snuck into the description."

Stiles wondered if it was physically possible to melt into the floor in embarrassment. "My dad's the Sheriff, it's important for me to have _opinions_ about Beacon Hills' law enforcement officers!"

Boyd interrupted this humiliating conversation by hurrying down the steps from the second-floor office. "Yeah?" he said to Derek.

Without looking up from his book, Derek tilted his head at Deputy Rushman. "The Sheriff's department wanted to check up on your ‘wellbeing'."

Boyd gave the Deputy a questioning glance. Next to Boyd, the woman was tiny; Stiles still wouldn't bet against her in a fight. "I'm fine."

The Deputy gave Boyd an appraising look. "Is everything all right, Mr. Boyd?" she asked. "You didn't show up for work today."

"Mr. Howard wanted me to switch shifts," Boyd said. "There's a late hockey game tonight and he needs the ice cleared and ready for tomorrow morning's open skate."

"Ah," said the Deputy. "I spoke with someone else in the office. They must have been mistaken."

Boyd shrugged. "It happens."

"As you can see," Derek interrupted. "Boyd's fine. I held up my end of the bargain, so if there's nothing else."

The deputy raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow. "Have yourself a nice day, Mr. Hale." She turned on her heel and leveled a glare at Stiles. "Come on, Mr. Stilinski. Your friend too."

"Why?" Stiles demanded, more out of habit than of actually wanting to stay. 

"Because this is the second time in two days that I've found you trespassing," Deputy Rushman pointed out. "Come on."

Making a face, Stiles turned to Lydia, only to find her staring at the shadows where Peter had disappeared. All his prepared snark dissolved on his tongue. "Lydia?"

The girl blinked and quickly flicked her attention to the people in the middle of the room. "Yes?" she said with hollow brightness. 

"The Deputy's kicking us out," Stiles said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder and not at all freaking out. Sure, Lydia had _said_ she'd wanted to talk to Peter, but that was a whole different beast than actually seeing the man in the flesh. "Come on, I owe you like a dozen lattes."

With exquisite care, Lydia stood, brushing her skirt down with steady hands. "Derek, thanks again for your hospitality," she said. "Boyd."

Head held high, Lydia walked past Stiles and the Deputy, never looking at the shadows. 

Stiles looked at Derek, got a scaled-down version of the Hale grumpy-face, and scampered after Lydia. From the unhurried pitter-patter of work boots, Stiles could tell the Deputy was on his heels.

In the fresh air, Stiles found Lydia beside her car, typing into her phone with fervor. "Hey, Lyds?" he tried.

"Don't call me ‘Lyds'," she bit out, nearly dropping her phone. "Fuck!"

"It's okay," Stiles said, wanting to freak out but holding it in. One of them needed to keep it together while the Deputy was around. "What at you doing?"

Lydia bit her lower lip. "It's nearly one, Jackson's family has Sunday dinner at two and he hasn't texted me yet and I just--" 

"It's okay," Stiles said, using his _talking to wounded werewolves_ voice. Dimly, he knew the Deputy was standing nearby, but that didn't matter, only Lydia mattered. "Do you want to go over to Jackson's house?"

"No, we have to get your jeep," Lydia said. Her hands were shaking now, and Stiles knew those signs, had lived those signs for weeks after Gerard tortured him. 

In one of his darker periods, Stiles had spent over an hour designing a t-shirt that read _PTSD's Bitch_ with a little cartoon wolf on the front, then had systematically ripped up every page in that notebook and burned every scrap of paper in the fireplace. So yeah, Stiles knew that the last thing Lydia needed was a drive up to the werewolf infested woods.

"Don't worry about my jeep, I'll get my dad to drive me up there later," Stiles said. Carefully, he took the keys out of Lydia's hand. "Let's go over to Jackson's house, if his dad's okay with that."

Lydia sniffled. "Please, Mr. Whitmore loves me," she said, her voice more solid than it had been a few minutes before. 

"Come on, then." Stiles rounded the car and nearly smacked into Deputy Rushman. "Jesus, what?"

The woman's expression was inscrutable. "If you'd like to go get your jeep, I can take you up to the preserve."

Stiles was ninety percent sure he'd had this dream before, only Deputy Rushman may have been wearing far less clothing in the dream. Now, awake and in the middle of the sun-lit parking lot, it was more awkward than Stiles had thought possible. "Kinda busy at the moment," he said. 

"Drive Miss Martin home and I'll follow," Deputy Rushman said, turning back to her vehicle. 

Stiles didn't have time to parse what the Deputy's deal was; he had his hands full with Lydia. He waited until Lydia climbed into the passenger seat of her car before clambering into the driver's seat, moving the seat back a few inches and shoving the keys into the ignition. "You good?" he asked.

"Sure." Her phone pinged with a new text message. "Jackson says I can come over any time," she said, her voice shaking just the tiniest amount.

Stiles had to concentrate on backing the car out of the lot and onto the road, but when he got things moving in the right direction, he could spare a glance at Lydia. She was staring at her phone like it was a lifeline, tears on her cheeks. 

Stiles took a few deep breaths, not sure what to do. He was fine at dealing with trauma with the other boys, Scott, Isaac, even Derek. But he had absolutely no clue how to help the girls, because with them it wasn't just blood and power struggles. 

Allison had been manipulated by her family, been turned into a killer by her own parents. Lydia had been attacked and manipulated by a psychopathic werewolf from beyond the grave, which was a whole new level of fucked up. For days, she'd been saying she wanted to talk to Peter Hale and when she finally got that chance, she'd froze.

Stiles should never have let her anywhere near Peter.

Okay no, that wasn't his call to make, because Lydia was a big girl and probably the smartest person Stiles knew, but he should have done _something_ to be more supportive, stood up to Peter, _anything_.

"Why did you want to talk to Peter?" Stiles asked, concentrating on driving. 

Lydia let out a ragged breath. "When I was ten, we went to the planetarium in New York, and it was the best thing I'd ever seen," she said. "All sorts of things I'd never known, and I thought if I just learned enough, I'd be able to understand the whole universe."

Stiles knew about the planetarium visit; everyone in their class had known about Lydia Martin's year of outer space obsession. Planets and space travel and black holes, it was all Lydia talked about for months. 

Then one of the older boys in middle school had called her a geek and a freak in front of everyone one day, that only losers with no friends cared anything about science, and after that, Lydia had... changed.

That was when she started to hide how smart she was, Stiles realized. 

"And the thing was," Lydia went on, staring out the window, "I could. Anything I wanted to know, I could just look it up and understand it."

"Yeah," Stiles said, making a left turn, glancing in the rearview mirror to make sure the Deputy was still behind them. "But, um, Peter."

"Did you ever wonder how this werewolf stuff works?" Lydia asked scathingly. "Like, there has to be an explanation to _why_ a werewolf bite will infect some people and not others, like in _science_."

"Yeah, but--"

"But what the hell can bring someone back from the dead?" Lydia demanded. "Peter knows, he _has_ to know!"

"Lyd--"

"I need to know how he did what he did to me," Lydia went on, her hair falling in front of her face. "I need to know so it can't happen again."

Stiles' throat closed. He'd known Lydia was hurting, but he didn't realize that this was what had been obsessing her. But it made sense, it made so much sense. Peter had manipulated her into bringing him back from the dead; and then Jackson had _died_ on her and then she'd brought him back from the brink of hell. 

For someone like Lydia Martin, there had to be a reason and rational on _how_ such things could happen. 

Stiles wanted to say he understood, that he _got_ where she was coming from, that it would get better, but they were pulling up in front of Jackson's house and Jackson was standing on the sidewalk, watching.

Lydia barely waited until the car came to a stop before undoing her seatbelt, flinging open the car door and diving right into Jackson's arms.

Stiles slid out of the driver's seat and slammed the door. On the sidewalk, Lydia clung to Jackson, her face buried in his chest.

Jackson looked at Stiles, confused and more than a little angry. "What the hell?" Jackson asked. He held Lydia carefully, like she was precious, and Stiles would never ever admit how jealous that made him. 

So he just handed Jackson the car keys and said, "Peter was at Derek's this morning."

Jackson's eyes flashed electric blue at Peter's name. He gave Stiles a nod. To Lydia, he said, "Come on inside, my mom wants some help with dessert."

After a moment, Lydia let Jackson guide her into the house. Stiles watched them go, Jackson's arm around Lydia's shoulders. 

With a sigh, Stiles kicked at the curb as Deputy Rushman's car rolled up. With one last look at the Whitmore house, Stiles climbed into the familiar patrol car and let the Deputy drive them away.

"You know what sucks most about this?" Stiles asked when the car slowed at a red light.

Deputy Rushman eyed him oddly. "What?"

"It's that they're so damn perfect for each other. Jackson's an asshole but he's less of a jerk now, and she's so stupidly into him."

Silence.

"And now I'm actively shipping it, you know?" Stiles slumped back in the seat. "Jackson and Lydia, OTP. Fuck."

The scenery passed as the car headed for the mountain. After a few minutes, the Deputy said, "Lydia Martin was the girl who was attacked last year on the lacrosse field, wasn't she?"

"What?" Stiles had to think for a moment to pull his head out of his funk. "Yeah, that's her."

"It must have been difficult for her."

"She's all better now," Stiles said defensively. It wasn't true, but the Deputy didn't need to know the details. 

"She wasn't out with you last night."

Stiles frowned. "Lydia? She's research girl, not so much with the running and the screaming."

"What about you?"

Stiles turned in his seat to look directly at Deputy Rushman. She was paying more attention to him than to the road. "I play lacrosse, running and screaming is my specialty," he said. 

The woman smiled at his answer. "What about your friend, Allison Argent?"

"Not a screamer," Stiles blurted out before he thought better of it. While technically true, as Scott had accidentally let slip the year before (and there was _no_ amount of brain bleach that would get that visual out of Stiles' head), he wasn't sure he wanted to engage with Deputy Rushman on Allison. To deflect, he said, "So, like, seeing as how you keep showing up in my living room and in my friends' houses, do I have to keep calling you ‘Deputy', or can I call you Natasha?"

The woman didn't react as other adults might have, with annoyance or disdain. "You can call me whatever you like, Mr. Stilinski, as long as you answer my questions."

"Fine, _Natasha,_ " Stiles said. "Why do you want to know about Allison?"

Deputy Rushman, Natasha, whatever Stiles was allowed to call her now, was silent for a long moment before answering. "I've seen people in situations similar to Allison's, in the past," she finally said. "Losing so many people close to her, at this age, can be... difficult."

That was the understatement of the century. Stiles rubbed at his chin, wishing he'd taken the time to shave. "Happens to a lot of people," he said, which wasn't really a lie. Derek had been only slightly older than Allison when the Argents burned his family to the ground; Isaac had his brother die in combat and his father executed by the kanima. Bad stuff happened all the time to the people around Stiles. 

No big deal. They dealt.

"How is Allison's father handling all this?"

"What do you mean?" Natasha went quiet again, navigating the hairpin turns on the way up the mountain, and Stiles couldn't stand the silence. "What, so, like, his sister gets chomped and Allison's mom gets all stabby with herself and his dad goes missing in under a year, so what?"

"According to files, the only family Chris Argent has left is his daughter," Natasha said. "Given what I saw last night, I'm not exactly sure how he's taking that."

Stiles clamped his jaw shut, because how Allison's dad was _taking it_ was by bringing new hunters to town, keeping Allison under lock-down, and generally being a danger to everyone Stiles cared about. And yes, he _got_ that Chris Argent lived by some archaic Hunter code and had helped the werewolves stop Gerard the previous summer, but that Code only kept Stiles' friends alive as long as Chris Argent decided it did. 

Stiles would be forgiven for not putting an overabundance of trust on Chris Argent's moral fiber.

And considering he _still_ didn't know if Natasha was on the side of the angels, or if she was one of the Hunters come to town, Stiles was going to keep his goddamn mouth shut about Chris Argent.

Natasha pulled the car off the paved road, down the service road to where Stiles had left his jeep. "If you're worried about your friend, you can tell your father."

"Why him?" Stiles asked, biting his lower lip so hard he winced. 

"Because he's the sheriff," Natasha reminded Stiles. The corner of her mouth twisted up into a wry smile. "And it's somewhat apparent that you don't trust me."

"Trust?" Stiles feigned disbelief. "Of course I trust you, you're a highly trained member of law enforcement."

Natasha's arched eyebrow told Stiles that she didn't believe his protestations.

"Would I have come up into the forest with you, all alone, without telling anyone where we were going, if I didn't trust you?"

Natasha pulled the patrol car up beside the jeep and turned off the engine. She turned to face Stiles, and the steadiness of her gaze made him review exactly what he'd just said.

Alone. In the woods with no one around. No one knowing where they'd gone.

The hairs on the back of Stiles' neck stood up in sudden irrational fear. He was being silly, Lydia knew where they'd gone.

Only did she? She's been staring at her phone, on the other side of the cars when Natasha had made the quiet offer to drive Stiles to get his jeep; she'd already gone into Jackson's house by the time the patrol call pulled up at the curb. 

And now Stiles was alone in the woods with a woman who made no sense, a woman who suddenly appeared in the sheriff's department, a woman who'd verbally cowed four werewolves the night before, who had _gone after a wendigo_ the previous night with mysterious flaming arrows appearing out of nowhere. 

A woman who was now staring at him with eyes so green they were almost otherworldly.

Stiles couldn't move. His brain was stuck on a stutter of _trust_ and _alone_ and if Natasha had gone for his throat in that very instant, he wouldn't have been able to stop her.

Then she jerked her head around, all her attention on something outside the car, and Stiles could breathe again. 

"Stay here," Natasha ordered, flinging open the car door and getting out in one smooth motion, more like a dancer than a sheriff's deputy. Stiles took in another deep gulp of air and stumbled out of the car, looking wildly around the forest to see what might have attracted Natasha's attention. 

The woods were quiet, too quiet. Even when the wolves were out hunting, there were still some animal noises, like birds and stuff. But now, the forest around them was deathly silent.

Natasha's hand rested on her holster, her breath coming slow and steady as she stepped into the clearing. Stiles followed, alert to any danger. Damn it, what he'd give for just one werewolf right now, even Erica. 

Then a man stepped out from behind a tree.

Stiles jumped, stumbling over a dip in the ground, but Natasha didn't appear surprised. "Beacon Hills Sheriff's Department," she announced. "You're on private land."

The man affected surprise. "We must have gotten lost," he said.

We? Nothing good ever came of the phrase _we_ in Stiles' experience. Stiles did a three-sixty degree turn, skin crawling as he spotted at least four other people nearly concealed behind trees deeper in the woods. Strangers, each and every one, and Stiles no longer needed to wonder about the Hunters who might come to town. These had to be them.

Natasha didn't look happy. "You'll need to leave," she said. "If you're interested in the boundaries of publicly available park land, you can contact the Sheriff's office."

The man inclined his head. "And who should I say sent me, Deputy..." He let his voice trail off into a question.

"Deputy Rushman," Natasha said. Her hand was still on her holster. "Stiles, get your jeep."

With a duck and a nod, Stiles hurried across the clearing to his car. The thing had survived the wendigo's attack with only a dented hood to show for it. When Stiles turned the key in the ignition, the engine started without any problems. 

Inside the jeep, Stiles couldn't hear what the man said to Natasha before he turned back into the woods. Stiles watched as Natasha got back into her patrol car and waved at Stiles to go first down the dirt road. 

Heart in his mouth, Stiles drove away, glancing into his rearview mirror with increasing nervousness until he saw the patrol car start to follow him. Then he could concentrate on getting his heart rate under control again. 

Hunters.

There were Hunters in town. 

He had to call.... who? Scott? Derek? _Everyone_?

When he got back to town, Stiles promised himself, he'd drive straight to Derek's, give him a full description of the Hunters (four men and one woman, he was sure of that much at least) and they'd figure out what to do next. Maybe Scott could convince Allison to give them some information about the Hunters.

Stiles pulled his jeep out onto the paved road, glancing in the mirror to make sure Natasha was still behind him, and accelerated. Just drive, Stiles told himself. Derek needs to know about the Hunters, and the pack would decide what to do. That was what they did.

Halfway down the mountain, Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin when the patrol car's siren went off. Out of sheer force of habit, he braked, veering onto the shoulder of the road.

The patrol car stopped beside him, and Natasha got out. "Turn it off," she said through the open window. "And out."

"What, am I leaking?" Stiles asked, his voice pitching up. Had something happened to his jeep? Maybe it was the wendigo, jumping all over his baby and denting various surfaces. Jerking the keys from the ignition, Stiles slid out of the car, picking his way around to the jeep's hood and wrenching it open. Nothing seemed out of place, as far as his inexperienced eye could tell.

Maybe he'd ask Dad for car engine repair lessons for Christmas this year.

Natasha was walking around his jeep, holding a small black box in her hands. When she got to the back passenger-side wheel well, the box let out a squeal.

"What was that?" Stiles demanded. "What happened?

Natasha pocketed the black box. "Parking brake?" she asked.

"It's on. What was that thing?"

Natasha went down on one knee, reaching into the wheel well. With a quick jerk, she yanked free a small metal square. She held it up for Stiles' inspection. "It's a GPS tracker," she said, standing. "Someone really wanted to know where you were going."

Stiles' insides went wobbly. "Why?" was all he could get out. 

He'd been going to see Derek. He'd been going to see the werewolves in their somewhat secret den. And he drove the werewolves around sometimes, whenever they were hanging out. He had to, he was the only one who couldn't run through the forest like they could.

Natasha was watching him closely. "Are you going to be okay?" she demanded.

The solidity of her voice pulled Stiles back from an impending panic attack. Okay, someone had tried to lojack his ride. Someone probably Hunter-shaped. He shook his head hard to clear away the hysteria. "How long has that thing been on?" he asked.

Natasha gave it a once-over. "Not very long. There's only a tiny bit of dust, as what you'd expect from the ride down the mountain." She pulled an evidence glove out of her pocket and use it to hold the edges of the device while she rubbed away fingerprints. "Let them think it fell off over the bumps."

With that, she dropped the device onto the road, then kicked it around a few times until it was covered in dust.

"You're just going to leave it there?" Stiles asked. 

"What else would I do with it?" Natasha replied.

Stiles waved his hands. "What about evidence? Didn't they teach you about _evidence_ in Deputy School?"

"What would that prove?" Natasha asked. "It was a generic GPS tracker, no serial number. There's no way to trace it back to the buyer."

Stiles gaped at the woman. "Doesn't it matter to you that I'm being tracked by a bunch of--" He snapped his mouth shut before the word _Hunter_ could complicate his life. "By a bunch of people who track other people's driving?"

Natasha put her thumbs in her service belt and shifted her stance; it was classic alpha interrogation behavior, Stiles knew from his time with the werewolves, and any other time that might have confused him that this woman was acting so much like Derek, but now he was just upset. "Is there something you want to tell me about the people you think are tracking you?" Natasha asked pointedly. "An official complaint?"

Stiles glared at the woman, breathing hard. He couldn't speak, he _couldn't_ , not to tell her about the Hunters, because that would lead back to the werewolves. 

It wasn't that Stiles minded giving up Peter Hale. But Derek was just a guy who happened to be a werewolf, and the rest of the pack wasn't that bad.

But above all, Stiles would do whatever he had to do to protect Scott. Scott was one of the good guys, was Stiles' _best friend_ even if he was sort of stupid where Allison was concerned. If Stiles gave up the Hunters, he'd be delivering up Scott right along with them, and he couldn't ever do that.

So Stiles swallowed his outrage, his panic, and tried to smile reassuringly. From Natasha's expression, he could tell he didn't succeed. "Must have just been a school prank," he said. "You know how it goes."

Natasha looked at him for a long moment, then shook her head. "I can't help you if you don't tell me the truth."

Stiles rubbed at his eyes. "It's fine," he said, and he didn't know if it was the truth; caught up amongst the lies he had to keep telling.

Natasha let out a long breath. "If that's the way you want it, fine," she said. "Get back to town, I have rounds to make."

She stalked back to her vehicle. But she didn't drive off, not until Stiles was safely in his jeep and on his way into town. He watched the patrol car turn off onto the freeway as he coasted along towards the center of town, leaving him in its dust.

Maybe he'd hide out with Scott until the end of his shift. Dr. Deaton's clinic had always been safe in the past, through some combination of magic and sheer force of will. That might be as good as it got, today. 

Stiles whole body hurt. The day's adrenaline, combined with the aches and bruises from the previous night's wendigo attack, were dulling his concentration, and it wasn't until Stiles had parked his jeep in the clinic parking lot that he came to a complete stop as something hit him.

How the hell had Natasha know in the first place that the Hunters put a tracker on his car?


End file.
